Technology-mediated communication by smart devices versus direct communication to preadolescents and adolescents during pandemic isolation

Physical isolation - triggering factor of social anxiety and depressive tendencies in young people in the Romanian school

Abstract

Martin Luther King said that "people hate each other because they are afraid, they are afraid because they do not know each other and do not know each other because they do not communicate!"

 What does communication mean in a world where advanced technology unites peoples and continents from diametrically opposed parts of the globe?

What does it mean to communicate in this century, decade and especially, in the last two years, since, on a planetary level, the outbreak of the Covid pandemic has kept us all in our homes and radically transformed our usual way of relating?

Direct, face-to-face, authentic communication, based on the mimic and gestural perception of each other's emotions and intentions, say mental health specialists, is the key to healthy human relationships.

The lack of direct communication has pushed people into an area of mental fragility, insecurisant and anguish. The symptomatology with which adults and children present themselves in the psychological offices since the outbreak of the pandemic, described in the clinical trials during the last two years, confirms the hypothesis of this article, according to which, the isolation has determined the increase of the general anxiety among the Romanian population.