Perks of the Pandemic?: The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Socially Withdrawn Emerging Adults

Abstract

Emerging adults were among those especially affected by the distancing measures and instability brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, not all emerging adults were affected equally. Thus, the purpose of this paper was to determine if different types of socially withdrawn emerging adults (shy, unsocial, avoidant, mixed-withdrawn) were affected differently from one another and from non-withdrawn emerging adults. Pandemic impact was measured in terms of changes in mental distress, life satisfaction, and identity development from before the pandemic to during the pandemic. Participants were 1249 emerging adults from project READY, a nationally representative, longitudinal study of young adults in the United States. Results showed that mixed-withdrawn emerging adults decreased in mental distress from before the pandemic to during the pandemic while non-withdrawn emerging adults increased in mental distress. Additionally, there was a decrease in life satisfaction across groups, and no significant change in identity development across time.