“It Was Definitely like an Altered Social Scene”: Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic Restrictions on U.S. Adolescents’ Social Relationships

Abstract

Pandemic restrictions aiming to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S. impacted the quality, quantity and tenor of adolescents’ social relationships and shifted the context in which sensitive social learning is occurring. We conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with 47 adolescents (ages 10–24) from December 2020–February 2021, coded them using ATLAS.ti, and employed qualitative, grounded theory methodology to explore the impact of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions on adolescents’ social relationships with peers and family members. Overall, the impact of the pandemic restrictions on young people’s social relationships was multidimensional and complex. Many participants experienced benefits to relationships with family members. In contrast, their relationships with peers were more negatively impacted by severe social distancing measures. Young people who underwent significant social transitions and those who identified as people of color or LGBTQ+ described more negative effects on their social relationships.

1. Introduction

Human beings are social creatures who depend on social relationships to help preserve their health and well-being. Research has illustrated that adolescence (defined as between the ages of 10–24) presents a critical window for learning about how to navigate complex social relationships and that adults and peers provide different dimensions of social support during adolescence [1,2] Expanding social worlds and experiences during adolescence can influence learning and shape social relationships, health, and wellbeing throughout the life course [3]. In contrast, social isolation and lack of connection to others during this developmental period can have lasting negative impacts on physical and mental health [3].

Adolescence is normally a period of significant social expansion. Neurodevelopmental changes–changes in brain structure and function accompanied by hormonal and physical changes in the body–coupled with multiple social and contextual changes, prompt exploration of learning about social relationships with peers and adults [4]. While relationships with parents and siblings remain important, relationships with peers become increasingly significant [5]. In fact, some social learning during adolescence, such as emotional expression and regulation, collective problem solving, and building social bonds has been found to happen more effectively with peers than with adults [6]. At the onset of adolescence, young people enter into the social world of middle school and they begin to spend more time outside their home in the presence of peers. By late adolescence, youth spend the majority of their time with same-age peers [7]. The neurobiological changes associated with puberty facilitate this transition as young people become more willing to take social risks and become more sensitive to social feedback, including social evaluation, acceptance, and rejection [8,9]. The physical changes associated with puberty also create a window when young people are learning how to operate their new bigger, stronger, sexually maturing body; how to navigate the ways in which other people respond and react to their new physicality; and how to effectively interact with the social world around them [8].

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, adolescent development experts cautioned that the extreme social distancing measures being enacted to curb the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus were likely to have developmental effects on the social learning and wellbeing of adolescents [10]. Some experts predicted the closures of schools and implementation of stay-at-home orders, resulting in prolonged social isolation, would negatively impact adolescents’ overall mental health and wellbeing [11]. Negative impacts were predicted to be exacerbated for more vulnerable youth, including those who were experiencing violence, discrimination, and financial insecurity in their homes prior to the pandemic [12]. Given the social and political climate at the time, many also expected the pandemic would exacerbate vulnerability for LGBTQ and BIPOC youth [13,14]. These predictions were not universal. Some experts proposed that for some young people, the negative social effects of pandemic restrictions could be mitigated through the use of technology [6]. Others proposed that pandemic social restrictions could be protective for young people by decreasing daily stress, moderating sensory exposure, and by strengthening family bonds [15].

Emerging data suggests that the early pandemic, during spring and summer 2020, social restrictions affected adolescents’ mental health by altering their social experiences and relationships. Data suggests that while relationships with family members, may have improved during social isolation, particularly for younger adolescents, relationships with peers often suffered [16]. Adolescents who experienced loneliness during the pandemic were also more likely to report depression and other mental health challenges, including increased suicidality [16,17,18]. While technology and social media offered some ways to stay socially connected during this time, many adolescents experienced profound social isolation during this sensitive developmental window [19]. Prolonged social isolation limited opportunities for learning about social relationships at a critical developmental stage, which cannot necessarily be regained [4]. Rather than the normal expansion of social worlds that occurs during adolescence, during the height of social restrictions during the pandemic, young people experienced their social worlds shrinking to the size of their homes, bedrooms, laptops, and cellphones. The lasting impact of these social constraints are unlikely to be fully realized for many years, but adolescents’ descriptions of the impact of the pandemic restrictions on their social experiences offers important insights into understanding their experience and the potential effects.

In this study, we captured narratives from 47 U.S. adolescents to unpack the impact of isolation on their social relationships during the first 12 months of the pandemic when social isolation orders were most stringent. We included a broad age range (10–24 years old), recognizing that social development changes throughout early, mid, and late adolescence. and in order to understand how important life transitions occurring during this time have impacted young people’s experiences.

2. Methods

Author 1 conducted virtual interviews of 47 English-speaking youth ages 10–24 living in the U.S., via Zoom, from December 2020 through February 2021. Using purposive and snowball sampling [20], youth were recruited through list serves from youth-serving community-based organizations, announcements on LinkedIn, and word of mouth from other participants or adults who work with youth. This wide age range was included to capture the diversity of developmental experiences across adolescence—from puberty through emerging adulthood. The study protocol and interview guide were reviewed and approved by the [University]’s Committee for Protection of Human Subjects.

2.1. Participants

The majority (83%) of participants identified as female (n = 31) and participants ranged in age from 10–24, with a mean age of 18.2 years old (SD = 4.0). Although early adolescents (10–14 years old) made up the smallest portion of the sample, we included them in the analysis because most themes were consistent across age ranges. The majority of participants (79%) were currently enrolled in school—elementary (2%), middle (17%), or high school (26%), or college or graduate school (34%). Interviewees could select all applicable races or ethnicities and identified as White (51.0%), Latinx (34.0%), Asian (12.8%), Black (10.6%), and Arab (6.4%). To better understand romantic relationships, participants were asked to self-report how they described who they are sexually attracted to (e.g., heterosexual—I am attracted to people who are the opposite gender as I am; questioning—I am not sure who I am attracted to). Thirty-four percent of interviewees identified as homosexual, bisexual, other (non-specified), or questioning. The majority of participants (61.7%) lived in California, 17.0% lived in Colorado; and 21.3% lived in other states, including Washington, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland, Texas, and Kentucky (n = 10). Quotes are identified by participant age, race/ethnicity, self-described gender, and participant number.

Table 1. Participant Demographics.

#	Age (Years)	Race/Ethnicity	Gender Identity	Sexual Orientation	State	Current School Enrollment
1	16	White	Male	Heterosexual	CO	High School
2	23	White	Female	Questioning	CO	Not enrolled
3	20	White, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander	Female	Heterosexual	CA	College
4	16	White, Latina	Female	Other (not specified)	CA	High School
5	13	Asian	Male	Heterosexual	CA	Middle School
6	23	Asian	Female	Bisexual	NJ	Graduate School
7	17	Latinx	Non-binary	Bisexual	CA	High School
8	20	Black	Female	Heterosexual	CA	Adult School
9	18	Latino	Male	Heterosexual	CA	College
10	13	White	Male	Prefer not to say	CA	Middle School
11	18	White	Female	Bisexual	CA	College
12	17	Black	Female	Bisexual	CA	High School
13	11	White	Male	Prefer not to say	CO	Middle School
14	16	White, Asian	Female	Questioning	CA	High School
15	19	Latina	Female	Heterosexual	CA	College
16	17	Latina	Female	Other (not specified)	CA	High School
17	20	White, Asian	Female	Heterosexual	CA	High School
18	15	White	Male	Heterosexual	KY	Not enrolled
19	23	Latino	Male	Bisexual	CA	Not enrolled
20	17	Latina	Female	Heterosexual	CA	High School
21	12	White	Male	Heterosexual	CO	Middle School
22	10	White	Male	Heterosexual	CO	Middle School
23	21	White	Female	Heterosexual	MD	College
24	23	Black	Male	Heterosexual	TX	Not enrolled
25	24	White	Female	Bisexual	CO	Not Enrolled
26	22	Latina	Female	Heterosexual	CA	College
27	23	Black	Female	Heterosexual	NY	Graduate School
28	20	Latina	Female	Heterosexual	CO	College
29	23	Latina	Female	Heterosexual	CO	Not Enrolled
30	20	White, Latina	Female	Heterosexual	CO	College
31	20	White, Asian	Female	Bisexual	CO	College
32	18	White	Female	Heterosexual	CO	High School
33	21	White	Female	Heterosexual	MD	College
34	20	White	Female	Heterosexual	CA	College
35	24	Black	Male	Heterosexual	NY	Not Enrolled
36	12	Arab	Female	Heterosexual	WA	Middle School
37	12	White	Female	Questioning	CO	Middle School
38	14	White	Male	Heterosexual	CO	High School
39	11	Arab	Female	Heterosexual	CA	Elementary School
40	20	White	Female	Heterosexual	CA	College
41	18	Latina	Female	Heterosexual	CA	College
42	23	Latina	Female	Other (not specified)	CA	Not Enrolled
43	23	Latina	Female	Heterosexual	CA	Not Enrolled
44	22	White, Latina	Female	Heterosexual	MA	College
45	13	White	Male	Heterosexual	NY	Middle School
46	17	White, Latino	Male	Heterosexual	CA	High School
47	17	Latino	Male	Homosexual	CA	High School

provides complete demographic information for each interviewee.

2.2. Procedure

We emailed participants consent and assent forms. Due to the virtual context of this data collection, we verbally confirmed consents and assents at the beginning of the virtual interview. Parents of participants under the age of 18-year-old had the option of joining at the beginning of the interview to provide verbal permission or providing written permission via email prior to the interview. All participants verbally consented or assented to participate. Interviews lasted about one hour, and were conducted virtually on Zoom by the first author, who has expertise in qualitative methods and research. We used the integrated Zoom recording and the generated transcript. A research assistant and the first author verified all transcripts using the Zoom audio recording. Interviewees received a $25 virtual gift card for completing the interview.

After verbal consent was secured, before the interview began, youth completed a short demographic survey on Qualtrics responding to questions about age, gender, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, and zip code. We used a semi-structured interview guide (available upon request), which included 16 open-ended questions with relevant probes asking about how COVID-19 restrictions had impacted participants’ social relationships including platonic and romantic relationships with peers, as well as relationships with family, teachers, and other adults. We developed the interview guide by reviewing constructs relevant to social development in adolescence and through a co-design session with four adolescents between the ages of 15 and 19. Aligned with the methods of grounded theory, not all questions were asked of all interviewees and additional questions beyond the scope of the guide were included when relevant [21].

We made every effort to safeguard the confidentiality of participants. All interviews were video and audio recorded using Zoom. We immediately destroyed all videos. Once we received the Zoom-generated transcription for each interview, we de-identified the transcripts, replaced all names with participant codes, and used the audio recording to verify the accuracy of the transcription. Upon completion of the verification, we destroyed all audio recordings. All of participants’ personal information was stored in a password protected, encrypted file. We stored deidentified data on a separate server in a password protected, encrypted file. Given the sensitivity of issues many of the interviewees raised during the interviews, all participants were offered referrals and support at the conclusion of the study. The interviewer is a trained mandated reporter and when participants disclosed experiencing depression or feelings of self-harm, she followed mandated reporting procedures to ensure they had appropriate supportive services.

Sustaining methods of grounded theory, we did not attempt to control for threats to validity with our design, but instead created a strategy to rule out threats to the interpretation of the data (Maxwell, 2005). Throughout the reflective data collection process, the interviewer employed tested strategies to bolster the integrity of the data which included: soliciting feedback from interviewees on the themes emerging through the interviews (respondent validation); actively seeking out discrepant evidence and negative cases; and comparing newly emerging interview themes to previously collected data from this study [22].

2.3. Analysis

We imported the transcribed, verified transcripts into ATLAS.ti. Following the interpretive design of this project, the first author, who conducted all the interviews, also coded the data. Immediately following each interview, she would write reflection notes. From these reflection notes, she began to develop major theme areas, which she entered into ATLAS.ti. Once each transcript was cleaned and finalized and imported into ATLAS.ti, the first author began coding using the codes that emerged from her notes, refining and expanding the generative codebook throughout the coding process. After coding all interviews, she identified the most commonly emerging codes that highlighted the clearest and most focused themes, and completed a second round of coding of all interviews with a focus on those codes and subcodes. During the data collection and analysis process, the first author kept careful notes reflecting her thoughts and assumptions about the data and the interviewees, which allowed her to more objectively explore how these factors influenced the analysis. After coding all interviews, all authors revisited the emerging key themes that arose from the data and aligned with existing theory and hypotheses about the impact of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions on adolescents’ social relationships and the subsequent impact on their health and well-being and social development. As the key themes emerged from the data, we extracted excerpts related to those themes from the transcripts and re-coded them using classifications that had emerged from the original coding. We exported the demographic survey data from Qualtrics and analyzed it using Excel.

3. Results

The interviews clearly reflected the diversity of experiences young people had during the pandemic. During the first six months of the pandemic, different U.S. states and cities had different shelter in place orders and restrictions on schools, businesses and social gatherings. The scope and duration of these restrictions varied widely based on state and local politics and the perspectives of local health jurisdictions. Some of the respondents returned to in-person school or work as early as May 2020 while others were still in virtual school and work at the time of the interviews in winter 2021. Participants also described a range of ways in which families and peer groups adhered to pandemic restrictions. The majority of participants reported forming social pods–small social networks that people identified as safe to see even during the pandemic restrictions. Some of the participants fell at opposite ends of the spectrum with some reporting almost complete social isolation since the beginning of the pandemic and others resuming very normal social activity following the first few weeks of pandemic lockdown.

Regardless of whether they lived or what the restrictions were, all participants spoke about how the shelter-in-place orders, fear of contracting COVID-19, and other public health restrictions impacted their social relationships with peers and family members. Many of these effects were negative, although some young people described positive effects of the social isolation—particularly in strengthening preexisting relationships with peers and family members they were living with during the pandemic. In general, younger, White, male participants described more benefits associated with social isolation. They reported the least amount of change to their social relationships and felt that virtual school freed them up to spend more time doing social activities they enjoyed (e.g., riding bikes with friends, skateboarding, playing video games). In contrast, middle and older adolescents, particularly those who identified as people of color or LGBTQ, described more negative outcomes. Young people who underwent significant social transitions (e.g., beginning middle or high school, graduating, finding a new job, moving) also described more negative impacts to their social relationships. Almost all participants described tracking COVID-19 cases closely to monitor when they might be able to resume pre-pandemic social interactions. We have outlined the key themes related to changes in social relationships, specifically with platonic and romantic peers and family members, and the impact of these changes on health and wellbeing.

3.1. Physical Intimacy

Physical intimacy is an important component of relationships. Participants in this study were divided about their feelings about the pandemic’s impact on physical intimacy in their lives. Approximately 40% of them described themselves as not being very physically connected or engaged with others prior to the pandemic and therefore, reported not missing not being able to have other physical contact with people in their lives. One 17-year-old Latino male (#47) reflects a common sentiment of not missing human touch, “I was never really like a touchy person, like I hate it when people hug me and stuff like that. I don’t really like it. I don’t like a lot of attention on me”.

More than half of the participants described loss not being able to physically connect with friends, family members, and other people in their lives. For some, they noticed it but did not describe an emotional effect. A 17-year-old White and Latino male (#46) reflects, “I guess I do miss like the hugs and high fives and stuff the fist bumps…I could say I miss it, but it doesn’t make me sad or anything”. For others, the emotional impact was greater. A 16-year-old White and Latina female (#4) explains “…that’s had like a big impact on my family. It feels weird to say be there and just not give them a hug”. For the most vulnerable youth, the lack of physical intimacy with people they weren’t living with was profound. A 17-year-old Latina female (#16) explains:

I’m in foster care, so like, emotionally traumatized by stuff and like not really receiving attention or affection as a child, so like I would get it from my friends and I would get it from my boyfriend and I would get it from teachers…as soon as COVID hit…I don’t have that anymore and it became like really depressing because I felt like I needed someone to just hug me sometimes, and someone to just tell me, like, hey, everything’s okay. But that can’t really happen anymore…It’s like you’re losing a touch of reality.

3.2. Peer Relationships

As a result of the neurobiological changes associated with puberty, adolescents experience increased sensitivity to peer evaluation and peer influence [23]. In these interviews, almost all of the young people described how there was some relief from social evaluation, particularly from peers, during this time. A 17-year-old White and Asian female (#17) summed up this sentiment by saying “I feel like I haven’t felt peer pressure in like nine months” but also acknowledged this came with a cost, “that…is a good thing, but obviously, I’d rather be hanging out with people”. A 16-year-old White and Asian female (#14) echoed the sentiment of relief, “I’m definitely someone that just enjoys being by myself because there’s no one that I need to like try to impress or make laugh, like you know you can’t fail yourself” but then went on to note that the social isolation became too much, “I think after like a month or two, it was just like oh my god, this is like way too secluded”.

The participants specifically expressed relief about not having to worry about what other people might think about their clothes or hair. As one 13-year-old White male (#10) explains, there was a freedom associated with attending virtual school because, “you cannot feel everyone’s stares”. Some young people also described how decreased social exposure emboldened them to try out new things. An 18-year-old White female (#11) explains:

…not having the pressure of like in person school, you can really be who you want to be. Like I cut like 10 inches of my hair off and I started dyeing it…it was definitely like a confidence boost because you can see online…whoa, they cut their hair and they dyed it and they have a whole new outfit and it’s pretty cool actually.

Even as participants discussed the benefits of not having peers evaluate their hair, clothes, or other targets of social critique, overall, the cost on their overall mental health was high. Over half of participants (54%) reported feelings of loneliness and/or sadness due to isolation from friends and four participants (9%) reported they had attempted suicide since the onset of the pandemic. We present the themes related to the impact of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions on their friendships and romantic relationships below.

3.2.1. Friendships

The majority (78%) of young people reported that the strain of the pandemic and social isolation challenged their friendships. Many (48%) specified that the social isolation had led to the demise of important friendships. Young people also talked about how they fell out of practice building and maintaining friendships. Reflecting on her experience, a 20-year-old White and Latina female (#30) summarized this by stating, “…after those two or three months of like full quarantine lockdown, like I found myself, like awkward during conversations or like kind of like forgetting social cues”.

In line with other research, friendships deteriorated both from physical distance and less in-person contact, as well as from emotional distancing [24]. Overall, the quality of existing friendships changed. An 11-year-old multi-racial female (#39) captures the change in the quality of relationship when she describes, “you can’t do as much when you’re talking on FaceTime, when you’re in person while you’re talking, you could be doing cartwheels all over or swinging on a swing, but like you can’t really do that if you’re on a call”. A 17-year-old Latina female (#16) echoes this in her description of how her friendships have become more superficial, saying her friends are:

…not really communicating any more…I kinda just don’t really talk to them as much there’s nothing like an actual conversation…a lot of us are really stressed out, so like we don’t really have that much time to like talk to each other.

A number of participants described how the friendships that endured were fundamentally different from those that dissolved. At times, this was due to logistical barriers. For many young people, school closures led to the disappearance of some or all of their school-based friendships. A 17-year-old Latina female (#20) describes how when school closed her friendships “just drifted apart… so now I don’t really talk to anyone like from my school”. A 17-year-old Latinx gender diverse participant (#7) reinforced this experience stating “before COVID I was hanging out with friends from school, but as we got deeper into COVID, I don’t talk to people from school anymore”. At other times, it was due to different interests or different beliefs about acceptable social behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, participants described declining diversity among their friends—people most commonly sustained relationships with others who were most like them. This was often due to the emergence of social pods. As people spent more time with people in close geographic proximity or with the people they or their families felt closest too, they realized that the diversity of their social circles declined. A 20-year-old White and Latina female (#20) summarizes this well, “…I kind of like cut off friendships that were, like with people who are more different than I am…and it kind of only gave me access to people who are more like me”. Young people reported feeling sad, angry, depressed, discouraged, and unhappy as a result of these lost friendships.

In contrast, some participants reported some of their friendships benefited from the pandemic constraints. Many young people felt changes in the quality of their friendships. They reported that their more superficial relationships dropped off, helping them discover their true friends. A 22-year-old Latina female (#26) shared “the better thing that came from that [the pandemic] was like my actual friends…I know who my actual friends are now”. Participants found that the school closures, virtual school, and reduced social commitments also provided them with extra time to spend with friends. As one 10-year-old White male reports (#22), “school’s shorter so I can spend time playing video games and playing out with my friends”. Highlighting a different quality of social support in friendship, a highly engaged 17-year-old Latino male (#47) explains: “I feel like now I am able to help people much more…a lot of people are able to reach to me with questions that they have and I’m able to respond really quick since my phone is on 24/7 now…I have much more time to help people compared to before”.

3.2.2. Making New Friends

Meeting new people and making new friends is a core developmental task of adolescence. While some outliers reported making new friends through virtual platforms, the majority (88%) of participants complained that they had a very challenging time making new friends due to COVID-19 constraints. A 23-year-old White female (#2) explains “there’s only been a couple like new people in my life this year, and I really appreciate all of them. Making new friends and interacting with strangers, what I’ve been saying for the last month—like all I want to do is play pool against a stranger”. Young people who experienced social transitions such as switching schools, living situations, sports teams, or jobs reported some of the greatest challenges meeting new people. In describing the transition from middle to high school, a 15-year-old White male (#18) describes:

Yeah, it’s also been really difficult…You don’t know anybody…you’ll see some familiar names, but most of the names…you just don’t know who they are. That’s exactly how it’s been and our school doesn’t require the Zoom face thing to be on, so it’s just a bunch of people sitting with their cameras off and nobody, nobody talks… we’re just seeing people’s names with a blank screen who don’t talk at all…there’s really no chance to make friends right now.

Similarly, an 18-year-old White female (#32) who transitioned from high school to college during the first year of the pandemic reflects: “I think people…are going to have a harder time like making new friends because when you’re going into a new school and everyone’s kind of already set, it’s like really, really difficult to kind of figure out where you want to be”. Even when young people did make friendships, participants reported that there were still challenges in establishing and maintaining them. A 16-year-old White and Latina female (#4) articulates, “I’ve met more people in quarantine but haven’t had any stable friendships. Like I don’t talk to them regularly, like only if they text me to have a conversation. And then we’re done. I guess I just have a bunch of acquaintances”.

While most young people reported that social isolation negatively impacted their ability to meet new people and make new friends, some outliers, particularly those who described being anxious meeting people under normal circumstances, felt that the turn to virtual social platforms provided some benefits. A 17-year-old Latinx non-binary participant (#7) describes how meeting people virtually facilitated making new relationships describing, “…you get to see their Twitter feed and you know the type of things they retweet, what they like. And we already had a mutual interest…so, I feel like that’s made it easier for me”.

3.2.3. Romantic Relationships

During the course of their interviews, the majority of participants (70%) described being involved in a romantic relationship at some point between the onset of the pandemic restrictions in March 2020 and their interview. Most of these relationships began before the pandemic and many ended as a result of the pandemic constraints. A very small number of people reported beginning new romantic relationships during the lockdown and most people reported that they felt that COVID-19-related restrictions had led to them being involved in fewer romantic relationships. Overall, the pandemic significantly impacted people’s ability to meet new potential romantic partners. A 13-year-old White male (#45) who had broken up with his first ever girlfriend in December 2019, on the brink of the pandemic, described that even though he wanted another girlfriend, he couldn’t find one because “I haven’t really seen anybody”. A 19-year-old Latina female (#15) also reports, “I only hung out with like a few friends so there wasn’t like the ability to get like exposed to anyone new where I could like start dating”.

For some people in relationships prior to the pandemic, social restrictions directly contributed to the end of them. For others, particularly those who were sheltering with romantic partners or who made them part of their social pod, the isolation led to increased intimacy in their relationships. Those who stayed in relationships during the pandemic often had to develop complex strategies of isolation and testing, negotiated with family members and housemates, in order to spend time with their partners. A 17-year-old Latina female (#16) describes how even celebrating her three-year anniversary was strained, “I barely saw him and we weren’t alone, so it’s not like we could really like kiss each other, or hug each other”.

A number of older adolescents who were in relationships prior to the pandemic reported that it accelerated the pace of their relationship, as they had to make decisions about who they were going to live with and who was going to be in their pandemic bubble. A 21-year-old White female (#23) summed this up explaining that police enforcement of stay-at-home orders facilitated the decision to move in with her partner, “they had said, like if you get pulled over, like we’re able to ask you why you’re out like when it started to get more strict like then I just ended up moving in with him”. In other instances, participants found themselves unable to see their partners for prolonged periods of time due to physical distance, constraints from family members or roommates, or fear of COVID-19 exposure. In reflecting on the mandated bubbling required by her school athletic team, participant #23 goes on to describe “…that’s really hard because …I see my boyfriend all the time…I have to see him…it [not seeing her boyfriend] takes some of the fun out of…your life”. A 23 year-old Black male (#24) describes the strain on his romantic relationship: “this pandemic has really pushed her away from me…it’s not a nice feeling…I used to feel nice to see her, we used to share a lot…and now I don’t feel like a real interaction with her”. Those who experienced distance with romantic partners often describe how the separation creates significant stress, anxiety, and loneliness.

At times, participants felt that these restrictions directly led to the end of their romantic relationships. Relationships ended because people were unable to spend time together or because people realized they no longer wanted to be together. A 17-year-old Latina female (#20) experienced both of these factors contributing to the end of her 8-month-long relationship a couple of months after the lockdown began: “I felt like it was kind of due to COVID, like I wasn’t really able to like see him. And then also…I kind of like…being by myself”. She went on to discuss how it was difficult to know if it was something specific to the relationship or the general stress of the pandemic that led to the end of the relationship ending expressing, “I was a little confused…everybody had like mixed emotions of COVID so I was wondering if that’s that was like, part of the reason [we broke up] and I think, like, for the most part it was”. A 15-year-old White male (#18) described similar confusion when asked why his relationship fell apart, “I…I should remember this. I think it was right before COVID hit [that we started having problems in our relationship]…I don’t think COVID had an effect on it, or maybe it did, I don’t really know”.

Those who initiated new romantic relationships also described confusion about the role that the pandemic constraints had on their partner choice. A 24-year-old White female (#25) reflects on her new romantic relationship with a member of her pandemic social bubble:

I did have a very different relationship with him before the pandemic…basically I hated him [before the pandemic]…the two of us saw each other as completely off limits…but it is working out really well. I think we’re really what the other person needs right now.

Others described this same challenge—uncertain if the people they really liked the people they were beginning to date or if the circumstances and limited opportunities to meet people is what made them attractive.

3.3. Family Relationships

Relationships with family took two divergent paths. For some young people, the shelter-in-place orders strengthened their relationships with parents, siblings and other family members. More time at home, often in limited space, has contributed to increased connection and intimacy in families. A 17-year-old Latino male (#47) articulates:

For my family, I feel like we’ve been closer…I don’t have my own space to like study…I do it at the kitchen table…and then my mom’s like cooking and then my dad has to be in the room or something…I’ve gotten closer to them, and I think that’s a good thing that came out of this.

Often the increased intimacy of the relationships resulted from the forced time together. A 13-year-old White male (#45) explains that an improved relationship with his mother became essential when they were together all the time, “…if I do argue with her, I won’t be able to go to sleep and then go to school the next morning and just forget about it in the day. I had to deal with her all day”.

In contrast, increased proximity did not always translate into stronger familiar relationships and the increased time at home led to expanded tension, strain, and conflict. While most young people described being very aligned with their parents’ actions and values around adhering to stay at home orders and social restrictions, some young people disagreed with their parents on social isolation strategies. An 18-year-old Latino male (#9) states how many people have felt increased tension with his siblings, “all three of us share a room and there’s one desk and we’re all online…it’s always like, it’s hard. It’s not easy….I’ve seen that everyone in this household has like developed like angsty, temperament”. He describes a common theme that the tension results from the convergence of living together in the same physical space but also from the increased tension due to the pandemic and the subsequent financial impact on families. He experienced a family death due to COVID-19, which led to a funeral that became a transmission hotspot. Many young people fear that these experiences will permanently impact their family relationships as he goes on to describe “I barely talk to [my family] any more…I just can’t deal with like starting a conversation…I really don’t feel like talking. Let me just go up to my room”. In one extreme case, a 17-year-old Latina female (#16) was placed in foster care at the onset of the pandemic due to escalating violence at home.

3.3.1. Changes in Social Roles

All of the young people in the study talked about social roles, experiences, events and milestones they were missing out on as a result of the pandemic. These milestones have been defined as ways that young people enact maturity–translating their physical, social and cognitive maturation into new social positions [25]. A 15-year-old White male (#18) who transitioned into high school during the pandemic laments:

I was looking forward to actually getting some freedom…You know, at lunch…we don’t get to choose who we get to sit by at lunch in middle school like we got assigned one seat and now, in High School, we get to choose. But even if we go back, we probably won’t get to choose anymore because the pandemic, we have to stay six feet apart and…we’re going to get like assigned a seat.

This loss of freedom was described by early and middle adolescents who had anticipated social expansion, and was also salient for older adolescents who experienced increased constraints on their social lives. A 21-year-old White female (#23) explains, “I could do pretty much whatever I wanted, like I had such a choice, but it’s just so different now”.

Where young people lived geographically, local restrictions, and the prevalence of COVID-19 in their community affected whether young people celebrated a birthday in the context of social isolation. The young people who celebrated significant birthday milestones such as turning 21 and being legally able to drink or turning 16 and being legally able to drive expressed specific constraints to their social interactions with peers. A 16-year-old White and Asian female (#14) articulates, “I feel like being 16 is really like, I just got my license, I wish I would have like been able to like drive around with friends”. Similarly, a 21-year-old White female (#23) who celebrated her 21st birthday in April 2020, during the height of the lock down explained, “I’m 21 years old now, so…I was able to go to like the bars and stuff like that and that’s the wildest thing because it’s just like so against our rules now…with COVID [bars] have new rules, new regulations”.

In line with other research, older adolescents who were currently enrolled in college and continued to live in dorms, fraternity and sorority houses, and other group living environments diverged from the rest of the sample and often reported little change to their social environments [26]. While they did describe rules and social restrictions, many of them also described very normal college experiences including living with roommates, going out with groups of people, and attending large parties. All of them described taking precautions to get tested for COVID-19 and quarantining before returning home or visiting vulnerable family members, but most aligned with the sentiment shared by a 19-year-old Latina female (#15) “…people in college it’s like the demographic of people that think they will be fine if they get Coronavirus”. Almost all young people in these living environments reported outbreaks of COVID-19 on their campuses, but none of those who were in these living environments who contracted COVID-19 reported severe illness or reported passing on the infection to vulnerable family members. All of them expressed gratitude for the more normal social environment as a participant #15 who was living in a sorority house went on to express, “obviously people are going through way more and…I’m like very privileged”.

3.3.2. Impact on Health and Well-Being

The need to physically distance from friends and family members who people were intimately connected to impacted almost all participants. Almost all participants described feeling sad, lonely, and/or anxious as a result of the social isolation they experienced. A 17-year-old Black female (#12) reflects on how the social isolation has impacted her mental health: “my mental health has really diminished…I think I’ve developed like anxiety…it was a lot easier to like suppress it when I was in school, cuz I just I filled my schedule up and I just did things and like I always saw people”. A 19-year-old Latina female (#15) explains that distancing from close friends “was definitely like an altered social scene because of the pandemic with like distancing and stuff like that…like a noticeable like added level of anxiety”. A 17-year-old White and Latino male (#46) describes feeling “sad…just sadness and loneliness”.

Some participants turned to friends and family members for support, which often led to increased feelings of connection and support. When this was positive, it led to increased connection and intimacy. In contrast, others felt lonely and isolated. A 20-year-old White and Asian female (#17) explained, “I don’t think I really turned to anybody. It was just like, this sucks…I probably could have like called people more or something, I don’t know. But yeah, I think I was just very in my head about everything”.

4. Discussion

The developmental phase of adolescence, spanning the trajectory from 10–24, is filled with numerous critical inflection points. During this 15-year span, young people experience significant transformations in their rights (e.g., being able to legally vote, drive, made personal medical decisions, or drink); roles (e.g., student, worker, child, friend, romantic partner); and responsibilities (e.g., chores, finances, caretaking). A primary developmental task during this time is to learn about complex social relationships—including romantic relationships [1]. Collectively, these transitions facilitate the transition to adulthood. The social, emotional, cognitive and biological development that supports this transition make young people particularly vulnerable to the social restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Extensive quantitative research has demonstrated that young people experienced declines in mental health and increased mental health disorders including depression, anxiety, and suicidality during and following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic [27,28]. Further, social isolation has been demonstrated to be associated with a wide range of poor physical and mental health outcomes among adolescents [29]. This study unpacks the experiences of young people during the times of social restrictions and offers important considerations for future infectious disease response plans.

The themes identified in these interviews point to the diverse ways in which social restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the social relationships and social development of young people. Despite significant developmental diversity from 10–24 years of age, all young people in this study reported that social restrictions impacted their relationships with peers and family members. Economic, social and contextual factors such as living environments, family stressors, and local political climates influenced how young people experienced the pandemic restrictions. For most youth, the effects were negative as the size and diversity of their social networks shrank and people spent less time with peers. During adolescence, a primary goal is to expand social networks and during this time, very few young people reported meeting new people or starting new relationships. In many of their established relationships, young people experienced declines in the physical and social intimacy they felt with the people they care about. Some youth reported increased stress and tension with the people they were living with–families and housemates–often stemming from reduced agency and choice in these relationships. All participants in this study experienced feelings of loneliness and isolation, and many reported feeling increased anxiety, depression, and even feelings of suicidality. Communication with friends and romantic partners often declined, unless they were housemates or lived in very close physical proximity. Despite the popular narrative about COVID social pods or bubbles, many young people in this study described almost complete social isolation for prolonged periods of time, particularly during the first phase of the pandemic in spring 2020. Although virtual platforms and socially distanced interactions provided some connection, many of the participants missed being able to have intimate emotional and physical connections with peers. Most young people missed celebrating important milestone events they had long been anticipating such as graduations, transitions to new schools, and birthday celebrations with friends and family. Many young people felt very isolated as they coped with all of these losses.

The impacts of the pandemic were not all negative. In some cases, participants reported improved social relationships with family members, close friends, and/or romantic partners. Many older youth who were living with peers during the lockdown felt fortunate for the strengthening and deepening of those relationships. The circumstances of the pandemic even led to the strengthening of some relationships that had previously been undesirable. Some of the younger youth found that the shortened school days and lack of rigorous academics associated with virtual school afforded them with more opportunities to socialize with friends both virtually and in person. Some participants, across all age groups, experienced strengthened family relationships as a benefit of the pandemic restrictions. All participants acknowledged that while they were grateful for these benefits, the costs of social isolation greatly overshadowed them.

These themes highlight ways that youth are coping with these impacts and point to areas where young people are likely to need additional support as we emerge from this pandemic. This study helps us understand how social deprivation helped to contribute to the current adolescent mental health crisis and highlights the need for adults and youth to work together to address these existing threats to mental health and wellbeing [27]. The disruption of the existing social structure clearly had a profound impact on the current lives of young people and, depending on their developmental stage, could have lasting effects.

5. Limitations

One limitation of this study is that we asked adolescents to provide a retrospective narrative of their experiences of social isolation over the past year. As such, these interviews represent only the information that young people were able to recall and willing to explicitly describe. The timing of the data collection was also during a spike of COVID-19 cases in the U.S., which may have enhanced young people’s negative perceptions of the experience of the pandemic. A second limitation of this study was that due to the sample size, it was not possible to fully explore the different ways that individual characteristics including developmental stage, gender, culture/ethnicity, sexual orientation, physical health and ability, and socio-economics affected experiences of the impact of the social restrictions associated with the pandemic. The sample majority of participants identified as female which limited our understanding of the experience of male and non-binary adolescents. Expanding the research to focus specifically on these individual characteristics may uncover important differences between how different subgroups within the adolescent population have experienced the restrictions. We also recognize that states within the U.S. took varying approaches to social restrictions, which may have affected young people’s experiences; even within states, school district approaches varied. The majority of youth in this sample lived in California (61.7%), and we recognize that a more geographically diverse sample may have unearthed different insights. In our analysis, we did not notice any remarkable differences between participants living in different states. A third limitation of this study was that, due to limited resources, inter-rater reliability of the analysis could not be assessed. While this would have departed from the interpretative approach of this study [22], having a second coder may have helped further verify the reliability of the findings.

6. Implications & Future Directions

Due to the importance of social development during adolescence, it will be important to follow the long-term impact of this experience of social deprivation on the physical and mental health of young people across their life course. It will also be important to attend to the diversity of experiences to determine differences in long-term impacts for young people who experienced COVID-19 pandemic restrictions during early (10–14), middle (15–19), or late adolescence (20–24). Given the differences in social development, we can hypothesize that age at the time of social restrictions, which contributed to different losses of critical learning opportunities, may have different impacts on social development long-term. Future research should follow young people’s experiences to see the long-term effects of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions on social relationships. It will be important to explore differences between young people who seemed to benefit from the decreased social evaluation and social pressure and those who were struggling during the social isolation. It will also be important to look at how young people at different developmental stages respond to the social isolation from the pandemic in different ways. While there were some benefits of the social constraints, as a 15-year-old White male (#18) described, for many, the social isolation due to COVID-19 restrictions were “a little bit heartbreaking”. The pandemic disrupted the social development of young people at a critical period. It is essential to provide support and services to help the young people who experienced this disruption, as well as carefully consider the impact for future generations.