Life-course theories on how social relationships affect mental health are limited in causal claims. The restrictions in social contact during the coronavirus pandemic provided a natural experiment that modified the frequency of in-person contact and allowed us to estimate the effect of changes in in-person social contact frequency on mental health in four large nationally representative age-cohorts of adults living in the UK. There was consistent evidence of a small but statistically significant effect of less frequent social contact on anxiety-depression. Online modes of social contact did not compensate for the restrictions in in-person social contact during the pandemic. Young adults who increased their online social media frequency during the pandemic experienced a deterioration in mental health. Life-course theories cannot ignore the importance of the mode of social contact for social relationships, especially during young adulthood.
CITATION STYLE
Rouxel, P., & Chandola, T. (2024). No Substitute for In-Person Interaction: Changing Modes of Social Contact during the Coronavirus Pandemic and Effects on the Mental Health of Adults in the UK. Sociology, 58(2), 330–350. https://doi.org/10.1177/00380385231172123
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