Has COVID made people ruder and more antisocial? 

Four years since the virus reached our shores, Irish Independent columnist and Iona Institute CEO David Quinn feels there is compelling evidence society is still reeling from the impact of lockdown. 

He cites testimonies from trade union SIPTU that antisocial behaviour is on the rise against transport workers and shop workers. 

“They were saying… that it has got worse since COVID,” Mr Quinn told Newstalk Breakfast.  

“COVID was some kind of a trigger that made things worse.” 

Research suggests that lockdown severely disrupted the socialisation of young people and has stopped them learning many of the key skills that matter in life. 

“The socialisation of people, we think it’s fairly easy and we take it for granted that it’s going to happen but actually it doesn’t,” Mr Quinn said. 

“All parents know this, it takes a lot of effort to teach their children to be polite and to get on in social situations. 

“But during COVID, everything came to a halt for months and months and months.”

Phone usage

Mr Quinn said he believes the widespread use of smartphones was harming children’s development as well, with many children increasingly giving up on real life socialisation. 

“You don’t learn social skills using your phone to communicate with people all day long,” he said. 

“You learn it through face to face contact and a lot of that has been lost. 

“You can’t blame it all on COVID… I suspect there's a certain cohort of young people who are more badly affected. 

“They haven’t grown up in an era where there’s lots and lots of face to face contact taken for granted.” 

It is a difficult problem and Mr Quinn said there is “no easy way to put this genie back into this bottle”. 

For some schools, the solution has been to simply ban smartphones and the Government is considering whether this should be rolled out nationwide.

Main image: A woman using a smartphone.