Ms Prachi Agrawal:

The Senator asked about the impact of the pandemic on this generation. I could go on and on about how those two years impacted me personally, but also my generation. First, I referred in my opening remarks to technology being such an integral part of the pandemic, both positively and negatively. Social media and the Internet are so useful to me because I can stay connected and updated about things that are happening around the world. I started getting interested in politics and global affairs because I saw all these movements, such as Black Lives Matter, and policies that were happening all over the world while I was just at home, isolating or doing school online, and I thought there was something more that could be done. The pandemic was definitely an eye-opener for many people, but it was not the best for the mental health of people around the world. We were at home without social contact. We were not meeting up with anyone. We were at home for the majority of the time, on our phones and almost overdosing on social media, scrolling for hours on end and almost getting indoctrinated by the screen. When we got back to school, one could see how we had changed. We were a lot quieter and shyer because we had not had social contact in two years. There were added mental health pressures caused by being at home for two years, not knowing oneself as much and feeling that we almost missed our teenage years in that sense. It was a really difficult transition. On a European level, more could have been done in respect of mental health awareness. That was the biggest thing we probably needed at the time - someone or something to tell us that mental health can get bad and that is okay. There is a need for support systems because it is difficult to go tell a teacher at school that your mental health is bad but it is even more difficult to be at home wondering what to do.