In my country, Australia, there were six long lockdowns. Not being able to socialise regularly over that chunk of a few years could have affected people.
I am Gen Y and in my early-mid 30s now. I was actually homeschooled my entire life. I felt that being homeschooled really affected my ability to socialise. I was learning basic social skills into my mid 20s, which was fairly embarrassing for me.
Graduated high school in 2021; I was about 16/17. For me, my senior year of HS wasn’t that bad. Sure, we all couldn’t physically be with one another, but I didn’t really mind. I’m a person who likes to hang out by myself than with other people most of the time. But if my friend wanted to hang out, we go on video calls. I actually prefer online classes. I didn’t need to wake up so freaking early to try to stay awake for 6 hours everyday and come back home to study for 4 more hours. I got to walk on stage when I graduated (all wearing masks tho). I’m just glad I got through high school because I didn’t really enjoy it (people there were okay/nice. It was the curriculum that made me dislike HS–in America).
Currently, I’m in my 5th year of Uni studying studio arts, but is thinking about going to trade school at my community college for welding because it’s harder for people who just graduated to get into (entry level) creative positions, the studio job isn’t what I want anymore, and visual development for animation is oversaturated/extremely competitive. I survived the pandemic, but I’m struggling to survive this current semester because of feeling jaded in studying the arts, still depressed, and lost my passion for creating stuff, but is slowly regaining it back. Overall, trying to figure out young adult life (now 22) and trying to keep my worrying about my future/career to a minimum.