Sunny Youth Journal

Humans only have 4 basic necessities: food, water, shelter, and interaction. What happens when one of those is taken away? During this difficult time, what with the Covid-19 pandemic, murderous hornets, and mass racial protests, it’s safe to say that the United States has received a fair share of trouble simply in 2020. However, there is one issue that has been the longest occurring, and that is Covid-19. This pandemic has made it so self-isolation was absolutely necessary; meaning, everybody had to stay away from each other. But what are the side effects of loneliness?

It may seem insignificant, but human interaction is incredibly important. Not so long ago, it used to be the normal of the world, therefore making everybody take it for granted. Being in this time of self isolation has really made the entire world reflect on the little things in life. It may not be so little, but, simple interaction is what keeps a person sane. Without it, this entire world would wreak havoc. People would start hallucinating and simply lose their minds. A quick “Hello,” could very much save a person from going insane.

Though interaction is undoubtedly one of the most important things that a human could need, there are a few others as well. Without these things, a human, or any living creature, really wouldn’t be able to survive. These things are food, water, and shelter. People may want more in life, but only these few things are needed for sheer survival.

Food is required to feed all the muscles and cells in the body. It acts as fuel to keep an organism going. Water is required to hydrate the cells and organs in the body and is necessary to maintain function of all those organs. Shelter is required because humans, and any other living being, are not built for all terrain. The harsh weather could deal serious damage, so shelter is needed to protect against it. That is why so many animals become endangered. It’s because their shelter, or their natural habitat, is being destroyed by humans. It is like stealing the shield and armor from the opponent in battle. Stripping them of protection.

Self-isolation has done less than ideal things for humans, but incredible things for nature; such as decreasing pollution in great amounts. Nature is thriving off this pandemic, but humans aren’t and there could be a scientific explanation. Everybody in quarantine has probably noticed the amount of snacking they have done. But it is not entirely their fault. Being lonely and deprived of social interaction can increase the dopamine neurons in the dopaminergic region of the midbrain. This area is specifically for cravings and addictions.

Being alone, separated from the rest of the world, it can cause oneself to be easily stimulated. Since food is a fingertip away, looking at it all day increases the dopamine neurons. Meaning, it is not that a person is hungry all day, it is just neural stimulation from being self-isolated.

All in all, self-isolation is helping this world, but also affecting us humans. Pollution has gone down and though self-isolating cannot save global warming, it gives the world a chance to make a difference. The negatives, it is taking away one of the four main and basic human necessities: social interaction. Now, it is “Social distancing.” This has really taken a toll on people because it is causing parts of our brains to behave differently due to the undesirable environment. Sure, it can be exciting to have nothing to do all day. But a few months in, the only thought is “There is nothing to do all day.” Interaction is as important as food and water and shelter, and almost as if our brains are in retaliation against self-isolation and loneliness, it plays tricks on us. Our brain makes us believe we are hungry when truly, we’re just lonely. Given this information, just like the rest of the second chances given because of this pandemic, people can use it for a greater good.

Before GenZ, the world’s most populated generation, the millennials, made a huge impact in the new modern world. Millennials have made changes in the past decade, from being one of the world’s strongest consumers. As scientists notice the age increases of millennials, in which the oldest millennials would be well over adulthood, it was time to go into the next generation, which were people born from 19996 and forward. GenZ, the newest generation that consists of people born in 1996-2015 are rising teens becoming adults are here to make a change in the future for this world.
In the newest generation, many of the people are currently aging to the point where it is their turn to make an impact on the world and significant changes. GenZ may have added lots of negative feelings from suicidal jokes that should not be joked around to causing people to plan scenarios in their head before a situation even occurred. However, GenZ has a good learning experience from previous generations, they have witnessed the crisis and problems in the generation before such as housing struggles, financial problems, and much more. GenZ has seen so much of it, that they are ready to make a change and hopefully preventing millions of students from going into student debt.
Before, GenZ has witnessed many students go hard in debt after chasing a dream college, attending it, and finally having zero success and then being in debt for most of their life trying to give back the money they had borrowed. Well, our future, this new generation has found many more paths to success, then just college. Saving money starting at a very young age has been happening much more often and again, the path of success or thought of going to success has changed drastically with the help of the internet. The biggest advantage and likelihood of GenZ making a good impact for the future is seeing and learning from past experience and building off from that to make better changes.

Trying to impress others by doing something you can’t is a hard thing. In “Seventh Grade” by Gary Soto, Victor, the protagonist of the story, did things he couldn’t do to try to impress Teresa, his crush. Victor did things like saying his crush’s name in English class, speaking French when he doesn’t really know how.

First, in English class Victor did something very embarrassing. Mr. Lucas, the English teacher, asked the class what is a noun; the class answered a place, person, or thing. Then Mr. Lucas asked Victor an example of a noun. Victor automatically and immediately said Teresa, which was the name of his crush. Victor was very embarrassed of himself, and was ashamed of blurting out his crush’s name.

Another example was when in French class. Victor didn’t know French that well, he learned Spanish and got pretty good at it but he was not so good at French. In French, the teacher, Mr. Bueller, said hello to the class and asked anyone if they knew or how to speak French. Victor just guessed a sentence and tried to show off when he didn’t even know how to speak the language. Victor instantly regretted what he did and was strongly embarrassed. 

Doing something that you can’t do is dangerous, it will get you ashamed and embarrassed of yourself. But sometimes you can overcome that obstacle and even guess. Victor did something he could not do and succeeded. 

Seventh grade could be a grade full of drama like how showed in the story. There are three points that I would want to talk about.

The first point is that I would compare to Victor by the way he acts. Instead of having a crush, I usually try to impress my friends. One incident that Victor did that was the most relatable, is answering the teacher’s question because he thinks he knows it when, in fact, he doesn’t. This usually occurred to me when I was younger to show off my skills, I wasn’t always correct but I never cared what people thought of me when I got it wrong.

Next, I think the teacher’s story during his teen years is very thoughtful for the author to write. This scene is what explains to me why he understood easily about what Victor was trying to do and knew exactly what he was doing. His story of impressing a girl he liked with borrowed cars is similar with how Victor stood up trying to answer the question asked by the teacher to impress Teresa.

Lastly, when Teresa asked Victor to help her study French, Victor was very stiff. He didn’t want to deal with looking in Teresa’s eyes while talking to her. Once Teresa asked him to help her out with French, he decided to put his effort in learning French for real by studying about the language. By doing this, it shows how affectionate he is towards the people he cares for.

In the video I think we all watched today it was about Gen x and What I thought about the video it struck me why do we need all these fancy names and why do people need to know about Gen x. In this world we want to make fancy names to advertise something and to gain popularity. But why name it Gen x? maybe they thought that it might be cooler and another name.

If we all say nonfancy words I think my vocab would be a lot better and I would have all A’s in school and might get 100’s for every test and quiz.

I will be writing about the ted talk video. So if you are a Gen Z then you are born from 1996 to 2015. There are good things on the internet like how to speak different languages. And there are also neutral things on the internet like conspiracy theories. And there are bad things on the internet like school shootings and protesters and ways to die and stuff like that. Most of the news is about negative stuff like people going to jail and deaths and global warming and stuff like that. People who work for the news are telling us too much stuff about negative things so we are scared about everything and our anxiety levels go up. Like if you hear like a story of a school shooting or like there are murders everywhere and like bad stuff, you would get scared. and it affects everybody in gen z. Like for example, in the video, they were in history class and they heard a big pop and they thought it was a gun and a school shooting was going to happen, even though they knew it was from the science class where they were popping balloons for a science experiment. This shows how easy it is to get frightened if you knew about any of these negative stuff, like kidnappings and school shootings, and serial killers and stuff like that. We need to tell the news to not give us too much negative information.

The ideas that Victor gets in the short story “Seventh Grade,” are flawed. It is pretty obvious that Victor is trying to get Teresa to like him by impressing her, which, fair enough, is a way to get somebody to like you. The problem is his methods, which we will be talking about later, and the effect on him in general.

One way that Victor tries to get Teresa to like him is looking better. The problem his what his idea of looking better is. His friend gave him the idea that all handsome people scowl. Therefore, people who scowl are considered handsome. Victor thinks this method works after trying it out, and seeing that girls look at him more often. The problem is that this obviously does not work, as even he thought that scowling would not make him look better when his friend first described this to him.

Another thing that Victor does to get Teresa to like him is to appear more knowledgable then he really is. Specifically, pretending to know how to speak French. His teacher immediately called Victors bluff, to which Victor responds in some very uncertain and made up French. This then results in Victor being completely humiliated in the first couple minutes of class. When the bell rings, Victor is too embarrassed to even look at anyone. Although one thing has gone his way: Apparently, Teresa does believe that Victor knows French, and his teacher is nice enough to let Victor get away with it.

The problem is the effect that this has on the way other people see Victor. Contrary to Victors belief, girls are not looking at Victor because they think that he is handsome, but rather because they think he looks weird from scowling. Victor then proceeds to ensure everybody in his french class that he has no idea of what he is doing by pretending to know french. This, if continued, will lead to his reputation being destroyed. Teresa may end up liking him, but will soon realize that the way Victor behaves is all an act, which will leave without Teresa and without a good reputation.

For the past few months, we have been trapped inside our houses, unable to attend school, let alone anywhere with more than three people. The Coronavirus, or COVID-19 has ravaged the country, or so some think, and has shut down businesses across the country. Everyone knows this, probably even the illiterate Cro-Magnon living in the basement level of some dilapidated parking lot. In short, this pandemic has affacted society in more ways than many, but it takes its toll on us individually in the form of cutting off social connectivity.

Solitude is nice. It’s a break from the agonizing screams from parents, siblings, or both, a pause button for life’s worries and stress. However, on the contrary, isolation is, well… boring, not just as an annoyance. When society lacks social contact, datrimental effects befall on us people.

In “Forced Social Isolation Causes Neural Craving Similar to Hunger,” by Scott Barry Kaufman, MIT researchers conducted an experiment in which 40 people were instructed to spend 10 hours away from any and all forms of social contact, and the results showed that the participants experienced a feeling of hunger or withdrawl in the midbrain, not dissimilar to an experience of going long periods of time without drugs or food, creating a craving sensation. Earlier in the article, it states that, “If the need for connection really is a basic need, then its deprivation should show similar effects on the brain and behavior as the deprivation of other basic needs such as food and sleep.” Thus, taking the research into consideration, it is safe to assume that human nature has a specific requirement or need for social contact.

As humans, by nature, are social animals, this craving of being with friends, or even making new ones out of strangers, seems completely normal and evident. However, in an event such as COVID-19, in which we are bound to our couches at home, TV remotes, or computer mice in hand, it becomes extremely obvious that social contact is necessary.

At this point in time, we are both fractured from society as a whole, but are more connected than we ever were, thanks to the existence of a very helpful tool: the Internet. Modern technology has made it possible to talk to, play with, or see almost anyone you know. Most people end up online as a result of seperation in the real world, causing more socializing to occur, more friends being made, and generally, a higher usage of computers. Although connectivity is so easy, simple methods of communication can also distract us from work, or other things that are more important than chatting online.

Despite this pandemic tearing us apart in terms of social connection, it also brings us together in a more convenient, albeit less healthy way of being with the ones we love.

Throughout my middle school and freshman years, I have witnessed many students express that they want to kill themselves. Most of the times, they mean it in a joking way, and the others around them chime in about how much they can relate. Combined with an unhealthy amount of self pity, this attitude can be very degrading.

A lot of times when a student says that they want to die, they are just following an ongoing trend. Just like the emo scene from the early 2000’s, being depressed is an aesthetic. Many people will try to act sad or empty just to fit a certain vibe and be popular among friends. Whether or not they are actually struggling with something, previous generations have never voiced their depression as much as Gen Z. I have heard many blame it on stress, but I do not think that is the case. In our time, one can still live in a privileged and safe area with opportunity regardless of whether they went to a good college. However in my immigrant parent’s generation, they needed to get into a top college in order to escape their developing country and find jobs in America. Like me, the vast majority of my school has parents that came from an Asian country. Our parents had much more riding on their education, therefore stress should not play a part in our obsession with depression.

I think the problem is that we are too sheltered, and have never needed to experience any hardships in our comfortable life. That is not necessarily a bad thing, since we will get used to the real world soon enough, but maturing high school and middle school students sometimes can’t handle obstacles that previous generations were accustomed to encountering. However, I do not think that our parents should blame us for being “soft”, because they were the ones who put us here.

Behavior

Social behavior includes how an individual’s thoughts, feelings and behavior influences, and is influenced by, other people. Creating social relationships is central to human well-being, and not just due to the pure joy of being with friends, or when learning social norms. It is argued that experiencing social behavior, and engaging in social interaction, is vital during childhood development. However, many children, for various reasons, are not able to participate in, or experience, the social behavior that is crucial for their well-being, mental health, and development.

The absence of social relationships and behavior have been shown to affect child development in various ways. For example, previous research has revealed that socially isolated children tend to have lower subsequent educational attainment, be part of a less advantaged social class in adulthood, and are more likely to be psychologically distressed in adulthood. This text will focus on how long-term social isolation is closely related to loneliness and physiological illness, and how it affects a healthy development of the brain.

Stress response

If a person is not able to experience the necessary level of social contact and behavior, they can experience social isolation. Social relationships are critical to the maintenance of health, and a lack of them often correlates with feelings of loneliness . Loneliness, in turn, has been linked to higher levels of stress.

The primary function of the human stress response is to protect the body from the environment. When a person is socially isolated, as it is a basic human need, the body will perceive the situation as a threat. The body cannot release stress hormones and protect the body from stressful situations for unlimited time. Having an active stress response over an extended period has been proven to increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, elevated blood pressure, infectious illness, cognitive deterioration, and mortality. These are some results from being prone to stress over time, and they are typically experienced in adulthood. High levels of stress are therefore regarded as a threat to a socially isolated child’s health, not only in their early years of life but also in adulthood.

Brain development

As argued, socially isolated children are at increased risk of health problems in adulthood. Furthermore, studies on social isolation have demonstrated that a lack of social relationships negatively impacts the development of the brain’s structure. In extreme cases of social isolation, studies of mice and have shown how the brain is strongly affected by a lack of social behavior and relationships

Early on in their development, the mice were socially isolated for several weeks to further investigate the relationship of social isolation. The researchers found deficits in the communication chains in a type of cell called oligonucleotides. In other words, these cells had impaired neuron-to-neuron communication in the prefrontal cortex. The function of these cells is dependent on social interaction to develop the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is a part of the brain which is associated with a variety of cognitive functions, such as planning, higher-level thought, and social interaction. The researchers argue that if the development of these cells and areas of the brain are disrupted, children can also possibly develop deficits in these areas of the brain.

Social support

The studies described in this text demonstrate the importance of social interaction, and how social isolation damages not only the physiological functions of the body but also the development of the nervous system’s support cells, which in turn affects the development of cognitive functioning. However, there are reasons to believe that the human need for social interaction is not only the risk factor but is also the “lifesaving factor.” When the human stress response is activated, multiple stress hormones are activated. One of the hormones that are released has the function to force us into social contact. As the need for social connection is important to everyone, in a vulnerable situation, this contact is so important that our body forces us to socialise.

Previous research has investigated how social support affects people who are prone to stress. Studies show children can cope more easily with high levels of stress. Research has also shown that social support is strongly associated with feelings of mastery and the ability to deal with stressful situations, as well as strongly associated with increased quality of life. Thus, by increasing the amount of social interaction, support, and contact they receive, children who experience social isolation avoid the potential harm of physiological illness, cognitive impairment, and feelings of loneliness.

Summary

This text has described how social behavior can be a risk factor for health if there is lack of it, but also how it can be a lifesaver to those struggling with social isolation. This demonstrates the fundamental need of human beings for social support, care, relationships, and behavior.