How the Current Pandemic Relates to the Development of Individuals. Paper Example

The coronavirus is the most recent pandemic that is facing the world and has brought most of the activities to a standstill. Activities that have been brought to a halt include most economic activities, sporting events, religious ceremonies across the world, and political activities (Khan, Ali, Siddique & Nabi, 2020). This effect is caused by the fast rate at which the virus spreads from one person to another due to people's close contact. To curb the spreading, all the activities mentioned above had to be stopped for a while. Additionally, it has forced most people to change their lifestyles to avoid being infected by the virus.

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Most of peer relations have been affected by this pandemic because of maintaining high levels of social distancing as a preventative measure to spread the coronavirus. On normal occasions, the growth and interactions of most peers of any age bracket depend on coming together and talking about matters that affect them. Now with social distancing, which is a public health measure of infection control to stop the spread of any highly contagious disease, most of the peers have been affected (Wilder-Smith & Freedman, 2020). Most of people in the world, especially in the United States, are used to living by encouraging one another by meeting and discussing the problems that they face. With that, it gradually promotes social and mental growth.

Some people have found social distancing to be a good thing because it has helped them to be relieved from business conferences and work stresses. On the other hand, some find it to be quite disturbing. On the brighter side, it protects those individuals who have not been infected by the coronavirus from being infected. For any kind of peer to develop, there must be social interactions.

With peer relations being an important element in the development of adolescents, they seem to have been highly affected by the social distancing directive. Adolescents prefer to spend most of their time with their age mates, and the opinions of their peers mean a lot to them. The directive of social distancing, therefore, reduces the time that most peers in adolescence spend together because they have been asked to stay home and to interact physically with one another. Most of adolescents depend on peer relations with other individuals for their emotional well-being and attitude development. With the reduction of physical interactions, this kind of growth is slowed down as they now only have to meet through social-media platforms to discuss their problems together, which is less convenient to them.

The adolescent stage is where they get to build most of their relationships, which determine the shape of their future social life. Physical interactions strengthen present and future relations, which allows them to know one another on a greater scale and then allows room for the creation of romantic relationships, which will have a great impact on their social life in the future. All these can never take place once there is social distancing among themselves. The coronavirus pandemic will have a huge impact on how adolescents grow and develop together with their peers because of the measure of social distancing to prevent the spreading. Once the pandemic shall be globally controlled is when peer relations among adolescents will develop normally.

Works Cited

A Wilder-Smith & D O Freedman, (2020). Isolation, quarantine, social distancing, and community containment: a pivotal role for old-style public health measures in the novel coronavirus (2019-nCov) outbreak. Journal of Travel Medicine. Volume 27, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1093/jtm/taaa020

Bradford B. Brown, (2009). 3 Peer Relationships in Adolescence. Handbook of Adolescent Psychology. Volume 2. https://doi.org//10.1002/9780470479193.adlpsy002004

S. Khan, A. Ali, S. Siddique & G. Nabi, (2020). The novel coronavirus is putting the world on alert. PlumX Metrics. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhin.2020.01.019