DENVER – The last several weeks have been hectic to say the very least, both globally and domestically within our own US borders.
Following the emergence of an unknown series of pneumonia cases out of Wuhan, China back in January of this year, the timeline of COVID-19’s rampant infection of many countries across the world has shocked and affected people on a scale that many in 2020 have yet to experience in their lives. The constant onslaught of dreary headlines available through Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, or even by major news outlets sending push notifications to smartphones has not escaped anyone, and folks internationally and in all age ranges are coping with the stresses associated with living in the times of a planet-wide pandemic.
Whether you look at college campuses shutting down their semesters and going online for the remainder of the year, the crashing stock market despite Washington’s best attempts at keeping Wall Street afloat, or the countless people suffering from business closures or restricted shifts due to quarantine, coronavirus has truly touched every sector of society and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Several students here at the University of Denver have made the tough choice to forego travelling home and instead elected to live out the United States’ quarantine days locally around campus. Two such students were available to offer their takes on how the coverage of this disease has negatively impacted theirs and others’ quality of life.
Maros Adamec, junior Media Studies major at DU spoke on how keeping up to date on current events while isolating has played a role in the building tension these past few weeks/days.
“It really has been anything that people are willing to talk about, and it’s been that way for at least a week and change now,” said Adamec, referencing the coronavirus and its rapid spread throughout the world. “Being holed up at home is one thing, but the consistent negative reinforcement for everyone definitely cannot be doing any good apart from informing people along with the panic,” he added.
Adamec brings up a solid point, as there is research backing up the negative mental health effects that constant exposure to “soft news” can have on individuals (Boukes & Viegenthart, 16). This soft news qualifies as content where, “events are more frequently portrayed in a human interest-framed, episodic manner in soft news than in hard news programs that, by, contrast tend to provide a (political) system-oriented perspective,” a description in line with many of the periodic, personal, expanding COVID-19 stories that mass media outlets on both sides of the political spectrum are running with lately (8).
Unfortunately enough the closing of public schools in addition to universities is an obvious first step in minimizing the risk of mass-spreading COVID-19 to communities, which means that teens and adolescents are also vulnerable to the toxic news stories permeating all of our news cycles these days. This portion of our population is the most malleable vis-a-vis traumatic experiences, and the effect of COVID hysteria on adolescents and teens around the world is something that no one is sure of exactly as we’re in the midst of this situation. However, the arguably even more rapid spread of social media and smartphone use amongst youth in America has made sure that studies examining children’s exposure to digital media and their mental health are readily available in the present day.
Martina Cernikova at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic published a paper delving into the awareness of children about the effect digital media has on their health. Her studies describe the phenomenon where, “children adopt the “media panic” frame when they provide vivid examples of strangers and kidnappings or death” (Cernikova 1). Given the recent circumstances internationally, it is tragically reasonable to assume that many of today’s youth have been inclined to adopt this frame of view after coronavirus’ recent explosion in relevance.
Matthew Moscati, a junior finance major at the University of Denver and also someone who remained on campus following the quarantine order echoed his agreement with this observation.
“What’s sad about this situation is that it’s already so gloomy and this is towards the beginning of the arc for America,” said Moscati. “I have relatives with little ones at home and the burden that they take on by not venting to their children is going to add up over time, especially if we aren’t over this soon, and who knows what that spells for people’s mental health down the road.”
Once again, this is nothing new for the United States of America, as an American Psychological Association Stress in America survey conducted in 2017 found that, “nearly two-thirds of Americans (63 percent) say the future of the nation is a very or somewhat significant source of stress” (Bethune & Lewan 1). Whether this is the fault of mass media’s portrayal of world events isn’t exactly clear, but hearing about current events is something that most Americans have in common with one another.
Though this has been the trend for the recent happenings and goings in the United States, hope still remains at the end of this predicament. With recent downticks in new confirmed cases in China, and several nations experiencing success with their quarantines and business stoppages it is doubtful that the COVID-19 pandemic will usher in the end of society as we know it. The question that remains now is whether or not people are prepared to bunker down, stay positive, and health conscious in social situations. With these precautions in place, one can hope that our world will be back up and running again in no time.
The MFJS Reporter -- Winter 2020 M-W 