Teen Social Interactions and Well-Being during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Charlene Kalenkoski and Sabrina Pabilonia

No 16437, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Adolescence is an important developmental period when teens begin spending less time with their parents and more time with friends and others outside their households as they transition into adulthood. Using the 2017–2021 American Time Use Surveys and the 2012, 2013, and 2021 Well-being Modules, we examine how the time teens spent alone and with parents, friends, and others changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, shedding light on how the social isolation of the pandemic disrupted this crucial development period. We also examine how time spent on various activities changed during the pandemic. Teens spent more time alone during the pandemic than before and spent more of their leisure time alone, with large increases in time spent playing computer games, on social media, and watching TV. Results suggest that socializing and communicating with others improves teens' well-being over other activities. Thus, teens' well-being was severely impacted by the pandemic.

Keywords: teens; adolescents; COVID-19; well-being; time use; gaming (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57 pages
Date: 2023-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ger, nep-hap and nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published - published in: Review of Economics of the Household, 2025, 23, 357–404

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp16437.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Teen social interactions and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic (2025)
Working Paper: Teen Social Interactions and Well-being during the COVID-19 Pandemic (2023)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16437

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().