When in Life Did Corona Catch You?

New Year's Eve in the year 2045.

Several young adults are standing together at a party in the Upper West Side, holding their drink of choice. One of the gathered partygoers begins to tell a story that happened yesterday. At the get-go, the story seems odd and uninteresting. But as the plot thickens, it becomes evident that the tale is pointless and disturbingly boring. The gathered friends begin to exhibit subtle body movements indicating disinterest and boredom. Yet the storyteller continues, uninterrupted, without any awareness of the listeners' complete apathy to his narrative.

The oblivious orator continues for several more minutes as some of the listeners begin to excuse themselves to "refill their drinks." Even then, the storyteller exhibits a complete lack of social awareness and identifies none of the glaring social cues that it may be time to end the story.

Source: Arthur Hidden/freepik

Eventually, one of the listeners, who happens to be a psychology student, pipes up and asks the chatty bore, "Hey, were you in kindergarten during the Corona year of 2020?"

The storyteller pauses for a moment, contemplates, and responds, "Yeah, how did you know?"

The perceptive psychology student responds, "You clearly lack basic social understanding. My guess is that during the crucial year of social development, you were stuck at home alone studying via Zoom. You missed out on learning important social skills."

As we begin to emerge from this disturbing and unpredictable year, psychologists are beginning to contemplate the long-term impact of Corona. The aftereffects of Corona will be felt by everyone. However, depending on when in life Corona occurred, it may impact you even more harshly.

One of the foundations of developmental psychology is that throughout life, we experience critical periods, which are opportune times to learn specific developmental tasks. Under the right circumstances, these critical periods produce adaptive development. On the other hand, if environmental resources were lacking during those critical periods, the task that was supposed to be learned during that critical period will be lost.

For example, one of the most famous theories in developmental psychology, known as attachment theory, posits that the first few weeks and months of life is a critical period for the development of attachment. Under circumstances of caregiver warmth and support, infants develop secure attachments. On the other hand, if the environment does not offer loving caregivers, infants may develop insecure attachments with lifelong consequences for future relationships. Once a critical period is over, it is very difficult to overcome what was lost.

Social development is also linked to critical periods. During early childhood, under the right social circumstances, children will learn social understanding. On the other hand, if those opportunities were lacking during the critical period, children may experience a deficit in social awareness.

When exactly in life did Corona catch you?

When you consider how Corona is going to impact you and your family, think about what critical period in life Corona occurred. Was it during infancy and its critical period of attachment development? Was it during early childhood and its critical period of social development? Was it during first grade and its critical period of academic development? Was it during the first year of marriage and its critical period of relational satisfaction? Was it during a first job and its critical period of developing work ethic?

Thinking about critical periods will help you decide what to focus on as we emerge from this dark year. We may need to work a bit harder on those areas to try and compensate for what was lost during critical periods.

Ultimately, intervention works, but we need to be aware of where exactly the deficits lie. A focus on critical periods and how Corona may have disturbed those periods will help us identify what areas to improve in ourselves, our children, and our families.