Five years after the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s easier than ever to be alone in America and not even realize it.
About a quarter of Americans are still worshiping virtually, according to the Pew Research Center, with livestreams of funerals, family reunions, graduations and weddings still popular. Experts say the telehealth era is just beginning.
Revenue in the food delivery market is expected to grow 7% annually to a $603 billion by 2030, and more than half of U.S. adults (53%) still say they prefer in-home video streaming to going to the movies, according to AdWeeek.Residents in The Villages bucked national trends by embracing outdoor dining options, moving religious services to parking lots full of golf carts and hosting socially-distanced driveway parties.
Their message for May mental health awareness month: reach out to those still stuck feeling isolated.
Melinda Billig, of the Village of Osceola Hills, never thought she would attend a funeral online prior to the pandemic — let alone have to bury her mother on Zoom.
“We threw my mom a big 95th birthday party in December. That was the last time she got to see any family before she died in July,” said Billig, whose mother was living in a nursing home during the lockdown. “To this day, I get heartbroken that she died alone, because we weren’t allowed to come see her.”
The virtual service was attended by family in New York and Pennsylvania and officiated by a rabbi from New Orleans.
“It would have been great to be able to hug and mourn together in person, but people from all over wouldn’t be able to attend if it weren’t for the internet,” said Billig.
Many seniors are still working through Covid’s toll, said Billig, who volunteers as a licensed social worker with Transition Life Consultants, a group that provides free mental health services in The Villages.
“We’re seeing a lot of grief,” Billig said. “And in grief, people tend to isolate.”
Pew data shows that seniors are still suffering from the mental strains of isolation, resulting in higher rates of depression and suicide. On the other of the spectrum, young people are grappling with stunted social skills that hamper their ability to find jobs and form relationships.
“The tides of the behavioral health tsunami turned around June 2020,” said Clara Reynolds, CEO and president of The Crisis Center of Tampa Bay, of the pandemic’s 90-day mark.
“People started to feel the feeling of a secondary loss. They didn’t get to go to graduation or experience weddings and funerals. It was all feeding a feeling of hopelessness.”
By February 2021, 42% of Florida adults reported symptoms of anxiety or depression, with 25% unable to access therapy, according to the National Alliance on Mental Health.
The upside, Reynolds said, was a rise in common conversations that helped de-stigmatized mental health issues.
“People were feeling these things at a high level,” she said. “Now, folks have the ability to recognize it, and people can say ‘I’m feeling this way. I know this feeling because I’ve felt it before.’”
Seniors in particular were on edge as the group most vulnerable to Covid.
Covid has killed at least 950,000 over 50 in the past five years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That age group still accounts for 90% of today’s Covid deaths.
Bonnie Hovel, a retired license clinical social worker who volunteers with Billig at TLC, said that high levels of stress, anxiety, loneliness, and self-doubt remain common.
“There’s almost like post-traumatic stress from the pandemic,” said Hovel. “There’s a kind of tension and all these conflicting emotions about what we should and shouldn’t worry about to stay safe. People now question things we used to do all the time. Like, ‘is it OK to blow out candles on a cake anymore, or it is OK to be in a crowd of people or wear a mask in public?’”
Frank Ancona, of the Village of Osceola Hills, said he remembers the constant fear for safety that lingered at the beginning of the pandemic.
“My wife and I took every precaution,” he said. “Being a senior, coming from a non-technological background, it was really bizarre for me, but my wife was really adaptable. She’d order the groceries and next thing we knew they would be at our door. We’d bring them inside and wipe down all the bags before putting the food away. As we are getting back to a normal lifestyle, we started reverting back to the way were doing things before.”
Like the Anconas, most Americans are retuning to a calmer sense of “normal.”
About half of people 50 and older (49%) now say the pandemic took only a minor toll on their lives overall, according Pew.
That’s due in large part to one advantage, mental heath experts say; seniors have already had a lifetime of tackling adversity.
“Resiliency comes from hope and promises of a better future,” Billig said. “When you have a solid background and lived a good life, you’re able to envision a life that’s better.”
Billig and other experts agree that keeping a positive and active routine helps build that mental toughness.
“When you don’t have a reason to get up, you don’t,” said Billig. “The Villages offers a unique opportunity to participate in a myriad of things and develop a routine.”
Experts say that America’s youth are still reeling from the lack of in-person socialization as well.
All that time spent consuming digital media robbed them of the ability to pick up on nonverbal communication.
“Communication includes body language and facial expressions,” Hovel said. “Younger people are going to have more struggles about how to connect with people and how to understand body language or what’s going on underneath the surface.”
Nearly 64% of young adults ages 18 to 29 believe digital interactions used during the pandemic were useful but not a replacement for in-person contact, according to Pew.
The lack of socialization led to lower levels of cognitive development and social skills, as well as high levels of mental health struggles for younger generations.
Reynolds likened the isolation effects to those seen among prison inmates.
“The worst form of punishment is solitary confinement,” she said. “That is what we were seeing with the mental health issues among the youth. Their development has been stunted with a loss of social skills leading to an increase in behavioral issues. Families don’t know what to do with their children.”
Public schools reported a 69% rise in students seeking mental health services since the pandemic as of April 2022, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
“Pre-teens and young adults haven’t had time to develop healthy coping mechanisms for stress,” Reynolds said. “That age group deals with stress by socialization, and they didn’t have access to that. Zoom was a way to create connections, but they were missing the in-person piece. Humans crave physical connection.”
Post-pandemic, adults age 18 to 24 were twice as likely to feel lonely than seniors age 66 and older, according to a 2021 nationwide study by Cigna.
Behavioral health experts said it is important for people, primarily young people, to appreciate the convenience of technology without allowing it to take over their lives.
Billig recalled how her family adapted.
“Every Monday night, we’d have our family Zoom call with different themes,” she said. “We did historical figures, and my daughters went all out. One even dressed up as Queen Elizabeth, and she looked amazing. We did animals and Disney princesses, even the guys dressed up as princesses. That’s important to me, that we come and spend undivided time together. That’s been a positive outcome from COVID-19.”
Hovel said her husband helped the clinic transition to Zoom at the start of the pandemic, leading them to be able to host online telehealth sessions, record presentations and programs, and begin a recurring YouTube series “Ask TLC.”
“If there is a silver lining, it’s that we can record our programs and put them on our website to keep sharing,” she said. “That helped us meet more people.”
The Crisis Center of Tampa Bay also implemented similar practices that made it easier to manage the fourth-highest call volume in the state to social services and suicide hotlines.
Today, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Naples, is aiming to bring federal firepower to the fight against isolation, especially for the nation’s seniors.
In February, he reintroduced the Social Engagement and Network Initiatives for Older Relief (SENIOR) Act, which would include screening for loneliness in the coordination of supportive services.
“Florida is blessed to have a wonderful senior population, and in my state and across the nation, seniors contribute greatly when given opportunities to be active members in their communities,” said Scott. “Combatting the feeling of isolation and loneliness for our aging community has endless benefits – from better mental and physical health to stronger, multigenerational relationships with families and communities.”
That message strikes a special chord for Billig, who welcomed her fourth grandchild on March 10.
Barely 2 hours old, newborn Foss Adoline was able to join the family’s post-pandemic tradition.
“He got to be on his first family Zoom,” Billig said. “There were four or five households on the call. It’s a parent’s obligation to make their children feel safe and secure. They have to give them hope and promise for a better future.”
Staff Writer Brea Jones can be reached at 352-753-1119, ext. 5414, or brea.jones@thevillagesmedia.com.
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