Collaborated with other UGA students to create an academic paper concerning major themes found through conversation with adolescents on this platform and connecting these themes back to course ideas.

1. Group Service-Learning Journal Paper 1
Group Service-Learning Journal Paper
Isabella Jordan, Christina Meiers, and Alli Lhamon
University of Georgia
HDFS3700S: Adolescent Development (Service Learning)
Dr. Melissa Landers-Potts
December 6, 2020

2. Group Service-Learning Journal Paper 2
Introduction
In this journal, the three of us will be talking about topics in two parts. In part one of this
paper, we will discuss specific examples from our experiences chatting on iPrevail to show how
adolescents and emerging adults are experiencing issues of anxiety, family conflict, and parents
not taking mental health seriously during the pandemic. In part two, we will be making
connections between those three issues and content we have learned in class. In both parts of the
paper, references to past chats and information from class will be used to further our points made
throughout the paper.
Part 1
In this part of our paper, we will be answering the question of what are some common
ways in which the pandemic has influenced adolescents/emerging adults across the iPrevail users
whom we have connected with. We will be answering this question collectively based on our
mental health coaching experiences during the pandemic. Across all of our experiences with
mental health coaching on iPrevail, we collectively noticed many individuals experiencing
similar issues including the topics of anxiety, family conflict, and parents not taking mental
health seriously during the pandemic.
The first topic we will be discussing is how we noticed many users describe having an
overwhelming sense of anxiety that lingers due to the several uncertainties caused by the
pandemic. Uncertainties such as, when will they be able to see their friends who understand them
again or when will they get to return to college and live more independently. For example, in one
of Alli’s chats with a user, the adolescent described how his freshman year of college has been
going. The user stated, “it’s so hard to meet people when everything is online. I can’t go home to
visit my family or friends and I can’t meet people here either” (Lhamon, 2020). The user goes on

3. Group Service-Learning Journal Paper 3
to discuss how he feels anxious because he is unsure of when he will be able to socialize like
normal again and receive the typical college experience he had anticipated. He had anxiety about
if he even made the right decision to enroll in college during a global pandemic in the first place.
This was just one example of the many pandemic-induced anxieties that we saw adolescents and
emerging adults on iPrevail adopt in our chats.
Another topic that we collectively observed when chatting on iPrevail is the rise of family
conflict during the pandemic. Due to the pandemic, schools are closed, sports are cancelled, and
there are heavy regulations on common places adolescents hang out together, such as movie
theaters, causing them to have to spend most of their time at home with their immediate family.
Many emerging adults have moved back home with their parents for various reasons, such as
their colleges going fully online or having to move out of their apartments because they could no
longer afford it from losing their job during the pandemic. The limit of social interaction to only
family members for such a long period of time can be very overwhelming on the family system.
We have all noticed in our chats that this increase of time spent with family has translated to a
high rate of family conflict. For instance, in one of Isabella’s chats, a 14-year-old user describes
his family as “very problematic, usually having multiple big fights a week” (Jordan, 2020). He
talked about how conflict is difficult when it is not handled one-on-one since it creates inequity.
He seemed to pick up on the pattern within his family where the conflicts seems to perpetuate.
Lastly, another common topic we all noticed that extends from the topic of family
conflict during the pandemic is many adolescents chatting to us about their feelings of being
misunderstood or unheard, especially by their parents or other adult figures in their life.
Specifically, many parents seem to not take their children’s mental health issues seriously and
therefore they often do not approach the treatment of their child’s mental health issues in a

4. Group Service-Learning Journal Paper 4
helpful way. We have talked to users whose parents did not want them to talk to a counselor
because they do not believe that their child needed to seek help. Or on the other hand, we have
talked to users whose parents forced them to go see a doctor because they did not feel like
dealing with their child’s mental health issues and just see it as a nuisance. For example,
Christina had a chat with a thirteen year old girl who told her mom that she self-harmed. Her
mom then “got mad and threatened to send [her] to a mental hospital because she [didn’t] want
to put up with it” (Meiers, 2020). Along with her struggles of self-harm, the girl was also
struggling with her depression medication dosage. Her medication was not helping her
depression, as it was making her feel worse and like she wanted to die. Christina asked the girl if
she had talked to her parents about how her depression medication was making her feel and she
said “They don’t really care. They send me to someone else to deal with it” (Meiers, 2020). This
girl is only thirteen years old and she had to deal with her self-harm and depression all by
herself, with only the help of a doctor. So, an unfortunate consequence of the pandemic is if
adolescents with mental health issues have to stay at home all day with parents who do not take
their mental health seriously, it may perpetuate the issues these adolescents have.
Ultimately, we found that it can be challenging to find “the right answer” to deliver to
users, but that sometimes all the user needs is someone to listen to them and relate to their
problems even if it may be in a small way.
Part 2
In this part of our journal, we will be discussing three connections between topics we
have learned in class and our collective experience with observing how the pandemic has
influenced the lives of adolescents and emerging adults on iPrevail. The three topics we will be
making connections between are peer relationships, family conflict, and depression in

5. Group Service-Learning Journal Paper 5
adolescence and emerging adulthood. We will be making connections between these three topics
and the experiences we previously mentioned in part 1.
The first connection we will be making is between the concept of peer relations
and Alli’s chat with a boy who is having anxiety about starting college during a pandemic. The
reason why he was having anxiety is because he did not know how he was going to socialize
during the pandemic. He could not go home to see his friends and it was also difficult to make
friends at college because of the safety regulations put in place from the pandemic. His anxiety
about socialization makes absolute sense because we know how important peer relations are
from class. Peer relations and friendship serve many functions, such as “companionship, [helping
build] self-esteem, [helping build] social skills, and [inducing] identity exploration” (Landers-
Potts, 2020). These functions are crucial for development during adolescence and they carry on
into adulthood. So even though the user Alli chatted with was college-aged and his development
in many ways is almost completed, friendship still serves a purpose in emerging adulthood.
Firstly, he still has that lifelong connection with his friends from back at home that he misses and
cannot visit due to the pandemic. These friends probably played a huge role in making him into
who he is today, as we just mentioned some important functions friendship plays in development
during adolescence, so it makes sense to miss them especially if he only just started college.
Secondly, the nature of friendship in emerging adulthood does become more intimate as “quality
over quantity” (Landers-Potts, 2020) in friendship becomes more important. So it is
understandable that the user Alli chatted with is anxious about not being able to socialize in
college because he is missing out on making some of the most intimate relationships he has ever
had. This user Alli chatted with who experienced anxiety over not being able to socialize due to

6. Group Service-Learning Journal Paper 6
the pandemic is just one example of the many users we spoke with who also experienced anxiety
induced by the pandemic.
The second connection we will be making is between the concept of family conflict and
the chat Isabella had with a user who was experiencing increased family conflict during the
pandemic. The research presented in class shows that under normal circumstances, without a
pandemic being present, that conflict between mothers and children increase during adolescence.
Since the term adolescence has been coined by G. Stanley Hall and was studied again by
sociologists Mannheim and Coleman, they “ suggested that all adolescents rebel against their
parents and all parents and adolescents experience intense conflict for many years” (Landers-
Potts, 2020). These suggestions apply more so to adolescents in more developed nations, rather
than more traditional societies. Those who live in traditional societies have more important needs
to focus on, such as making sure their family has food, shelter, and clothing, so they do not have
as much time for there to be conflict between parents and adolescents. For example, adolescents
in these societies do not have cell phones to argue with their parents about how much time they
are spending on it, as many adolescents do in more developed societies. To our knowledge, the
user Isabella chatted with was from America, which is a more developed nation rather than
traditional. So, the research just mentioned and the suggestions made my Hall, Mannheim, and
Coleman would apply to this user. So, if conflict is already a normal issue between adolescents
and their parents, these issues could be heightened during a pandemic where they are spending
almost all of their time together. For instance, in class we were presented research about time
spent with family in adolescence from 5th grade to 12th grade. As adolescents grow older, they
are typically spending less and less of their waking hours that are non-school with their family.
Before the pandemic, adolescents were spending less time with their family as they grow older

7. Group Service-Learning Journal Paper 7
and there still was an increase in conflict between adolescents and their parents. So it makes
sense that we all experienced many chats with users who are experiencing increased rates of
conflict with their family, as they are spending more time with their family than they typically
would because of the pandemic.
The last connection we will be discussing is the connection between the course concept
about depression and the chat Christina had with a girl whose parents did not take her mental
health seriously. As a reminder, this girl struggled with self-harm and her mom told her if she did
not stop, she would take the girl to a mental-hospital. The girl was also struggling with her
depression medication dosage, saying the current dosage was making her feel like she wanted to
die. The girl did not tell her mom about how her medication is making her feel because her mom
just sends her to a doctor to “deal with her” anyways. In class we learned that there are different
levels of depression. Since the girl Christina chatted with said that she was taking depression
medication, we suspect she may have Major Depressive Disorder, which is an “episode [that]
includes five or more symptoms during a two-week period and disrupts functioning” (Landers-
Potts, 2020). If she does have major depressive disorder it is concerning that her parents are not
very understanding of her mental illness because of the side effects we learned about the disorder
in class. Some of the symptoms include “ insomnia, low energy, and reduced interest or pleasure
in all or almost all activities, nearly every day” (Landers-Potts, 2020). It is also troubling that her
parents are not very understanding of her depression because of the research behind adolescents
taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a very common depression medication for
children and adolescents. We are not absolutely sure if she is taking an SSRI, but as we said, it is
a common depression medication for children and adolescents according to what we learned in
class. It is concerning that her parents do not take her depression seriously as it is not typically

8. Group Service-Learning Journal Paper 8
recommended that adolescents take SSRIS as it is reported that adolescents have a higher
likelihood of “suicide and suicide ideation when taking the medication” (Landers-Potts, 2020).
The girl already said that her medication makes her feel like she wants to die, so it would
probably make her journey of finding a treatment for her depression easier if her parents were
more supportive of her and took her illnesses more seriously. We all think it is unfortunate that
this girl has to spend so much extra time with her parents who do not take her mental health
seriously because of the pandemic.
Conclusion
Throughout our time using iPrevail and chatting with anonymous users, it was clear that
the pandemic has greatly impacted the adolescents of this time. When thinking about how the
pandemic has affected adolescents and emerging adults, it was common to see that those in this
age range find themselves to suffer from family conflict and mental health issues. Upon
establishing the different impacts that the pandemic has had on people in our chats, we were able
to make connections to class material. The material reaffirms what we have seen first hand, that
there are negative impacts that come from being in isolation and not being able to socialize as a
normal adolescent. 1

9. Group Service-Learning Journal Paper 9
References
Jordan, I., Anonymous, (November, 2020) personal communication.
Landers-Potts, M. (2020) Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach:
Family Relationships [PowerPoint].
Landers-Potts, M. (2020) Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach:
Friends and Peers [PowerPoint].
Landers-Potts, M. (2020) Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach:
Problems [PowerPoint].
Lhamon, A., Anonymous, (October, 2020) personal communication.
Meiers, C., Anonymous, (September, 2020) personal communication.