1

Kaylah Golder
English 2010
Beth Bailey
09/25/2021

Depression Rates Sky Rockets During the COVID-19 Pandemic

In 2017 there was an estimate that 17.3 million adults had depression in the United

States. During the COVID-19 pandemic the United States economic recession affected a lot of

people negatively with stress and emotional ups and downs and this caused many people’s

mental health to increase. About 4 out of 10 adults reported symptoms of anxiety and

depression during the coronavirus. Several people lost jobs which caused a lot of financial

stress in adults, and young adults had closures of schools and also lost some income as well.

KFF article states that “a larger than average share of young adults (ages 18-24) report

symptoms of anxiety and/or depressive disorder.” This is a very young age that is being

affected. Many of the “essential workers” during COVID-19 were faced with contracted the

coronavirus along with other several other challenges such as loss in money, furloughed, and

had new requirements that had to be done in order for them to work. 42% of the essential

workers reported depression and anxiety and 22% of them had suicidal thoughts during the

pandemic.

During the coronavirus lockdowns, a large percentage of teenagers increased the

amount they spent on their electronics by 44%. Everything was shut down and we could not see

family or friends. We had to communicate with everyone over text, social media, facetime,

phone calls etc. So did our electronics also cause people to become more depressed during this

time? In the article “Electronic media use and symptoms of depression among adolescents in
 2
Kaylah Golder
English 2010
Beth Bailey
09/25/2021

Norway”, the Norwegian Social Research group did a study on 12,353 people in the ages of 15-

16 years old. Their odds of becoming more depressed because of social media and being on it

for more than 3 hours a day was much higher than those that were on social media less than 3

hours a day. When you are consumed on social media you are not being able to interact with

other people so you are not able to communicate with others and create friendships. The

conclusion of this study found out that the more you are on social media or games the higher

your chances are of becoming depressed. That is why adolescence during COVID-19 were very

depressed. They were on their electronics more and not able to go out and do fun activities

with friends. They were isolated at home having to do school work online, which caused many

teenagers to not interact with friends and teachers which is another factor to depression rates

soaring in adolescents.

Many people do not know how to help their feelings of depression but there are studies

being done to try and find ways to treat depression. Neuromodulation seems to be “emerging

gradually as a new therapeutic field in psychiatric treatment.” The Vagus nerve stimulation

(VNS), is a device that has proved efficacy with pharmaco-resistant epilepsy. VNS is a type of

approach and it is implanted and gives a pulse that is able to stimulate the vagal afferent fibers

in the neck and this allows the impulse to go to the brain stem and target the locus coeruleus

and dorsal raphe nucleus. Depression is common and is reoccurring to many people so this

treatment can have success and failures. With depression being connected to suicide, the
 3
Kaylah Golder
English 2010
Beth Bailey
09/25/2021

treatments percentage of failing is about 20-40%. This is a lot of failures but with more studies

being done this could potentially be the cure for fixing severe depression in adults and young

adults. The VNS device has been studied for a long time, it was in Europe since 1994 and in the

US in 1997. Even if the VNS device hasn’t helped with depression, it has improved the mood of

the epilepsy patients, and they are in better control of their seizures. So the VNS device has at

least been able to contribute to helping people in some ways.

1. The first image is the percentage of depression disorders in 2019 vs. 2021

2. The second image is the VNS device that get implanted to help give pulsed to the brain

to help your depression.

Reflection:

I feel like my final draft ended up being really good. All of the feedback that I got from

everyone really helped me to know what I needed to fix. I added more photos to my essay so it
 4
Kaylah Golder
English 2010
Beth Bailey
09/25/2021

could capture and help the reader to know what I was stating. I feel like my tone throughout

the whole essay is very mature. I am not downplaying depression and I am giving all of the facts

that I possibly can to the reader.

Word Count: 772

Works Cited

Authors:
Italiya, Yashvi (Links to an external site.) italiyayashvi@gmail.com
Nakhat, Preeti (Links to an external site.) preeti.nakhat@gmail.com
Almost Depression among Teens and Young Adults
https://libprox1.slcc.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=asn&AN=141184981&site=eds-live&scope=site
Authors:
Kleppang, Annette Løvheim1 (AUTHOR) annette.kleppang@inn.no
Steigen, Anne Mari2 (AUTHOR)
Ma, Li1,3 (AUTHOR)
Søberg Finbråten, Hanne2 (AUTHOR)
Hagquist, Curt1,4 (AUTHOR)
Title: Electronic media use and symptoms of depression among adolescents in Norway.
https://libprox1.slcc.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=asn&AN=151270049&site=eds-live&scope=site
Author:
John P. O’Reardon, MD, Pilar Cristancho, MD, and Andrew D. Peshek, MD
 Title: Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) and Treatment of Depression: To the Brainstem and
Beyond
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2990624/
Authors:
 5
Kaylah Golder
English 2010
Beth Bailey
09/25/2021

Ali Ahmed, Shahla (ORCID 0000-0002-5337-9160 (Links to an external site.) ) ; Çerkez,

Yagmur (ORCID 0000-0002-3379-1035 (Links to an external site.) )
Title:  The Impact of Anxiety, Depression, and Stress on Emotional Stability among the
University Students from the View of Educational Aspects
https://libprox1.slcc.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1280318&site=eds-live&scope=site
Authors
Nirmita Panchal
Rabah Kama
Cynthia Cox
Rachel Garfield
Title:
The implications of COVID-19 for mental health and substance use
https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/the-implications-of-covid-19-for-mental-
health-and-substance-use/

Author: National Institute of Mental Health

Title: Major Depression

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/major-depression

Word Count: 844