News Update

High schoolers in distance learning more likely to be lonely, depressed

High school students who were in distance learning last year were more likely to feel lonely and depressed, a study found, according to The Sacramento Bee.

The UC Davis survey of 1,177 high school freshmen, sophomores and juniors found that students who attended school online felt more negatively about school and were more likely to feel lonely and sad than their peers who attended face-to-face classes. The survey was conducted from May through June 2021.

Drew Cingel, one of the UC Davis researchers behind the study, told The Bee that while he wasn’t surprised that those students were more likely to feel lonely or sad, he was surprised by how drastic the differences were.

“To find that adolescents and online schooling scored worse on almost every variable we measured across a wide array of variables — across feelings about school, sense of connection, media use, mental health … That was really surprising to us,” Cingel said.