The pandemic's impact on teen brains

Transcript

ERICA: Good morning! Welcome to Axios Today!

It’s Monday, December 5th.

I’m Erica Pandey in for Niala Boodhoo.

Here’s what we’re covering today: pressure mounts in Iran’s protests. Plus, a supply and demand mismatch for remote jobs. But first, the pandemic’s impact on teenage brains. That’s today’s One Big Thing.

ERICA: The stress of living through the pandemic aged adolescent brains by at least three or four years. That's according to a new study by Stanford University. Axios’ Sabrina Moreno has been covering the story and is joining us with the details.

So Sabrina, this Stanford study started eight years ago, way before the pandemic. What were they originally looking for?

SABRINA MORENO: So they were really looking into how adolescent girls have high rates of depression than boys who are their same age. And they were wanting to kind of see if that early life stress on younger brains, has an impact on outcomes such as anxiety, suicidal ideation.And the plan was to kind of bring people back in every two years, at least four separate times.

But then Covid shut down the research halfway through that third round, for about 10 months. And so then they decided to see, you know, have their brains changed? Are these the same people they were before the pandemic? And the researchers were telling me, you know, that it turns out that they're not. So that's really where it got started and how we got here.

ERICA: Right. So tell me more about that. What exactly did the researchers find out about these teenage brains in that pre Covid post Covid comparison?

SABRINA: So one of the biggest is that the brain aged about three to four years. And so what that means is that a 16-year-old girl is kind of showing the same brain age as someone who was 19, 20 years old before the pandemic. But there's also the parts about where they saw an enlarged hippocampus, which is the center of memory and learning, and an enlarged amygdala which processes emotions. And those same participants were also more likely to report severe anxiety. They were internalizing mental health problems, which means they're not really talking about it, but they're feeling it, and higher rates of depression.

ERICA: Did researchers point to what might have caused this aging?

SABRINA: Yeah, so they pointed to school closures, but more specifically the separation from peers that came from that. Those relationships with peers are critical during those development stages of teenagers. And I actually spoke to someone recently this week for a separate story who oversees this teen line, that's specifically on mental health. And she said that something that they were noticing the most was that people weren't navigating, and specifically teenagers weren't navigating relationships the same way that maybe they were before, you know, romantically, friendships wise, those were kind of lagging. And that's really important as you're, as you're developing.

But she also pointed to how some teenagers were reporting even more problems within the home. And that can also cause that stress or lead to that stress. And so while they did mention school closures, they also mentioned that there's a lot of things that happened during the pandemic. We're seeing climate change, we're seeing we're more on our phones, we're more on social media, and on top of that it, not everyone has really gone back to what normal was.

ERICA: So what are the long term effects of that accelerated aging of the brain?

SABRINA: So it's difficult to know in this specific instance, and that's something that they're going to be watching long term. But I was able to speak to folks who have been, you know, researching trauma in children who have these adverse experiences, who are having this toxic stress and that impact that it can have on teenagers’ life. And so we heard that it's kind of not a one size fits all. And what, what people were telling me was like, you know, there are people who bounce back that the brain is resilient, that adolescents are resilient.

But there's also the flip side of that where it can have, you know, these very physical symptoms, it can lead to substance use, it can lead to kind of not the greatest way of coping. And if people continue to isolate or if people continue to not really have people that they can go to or services they can go to. We can see this last a while, that's something that researchers said, we're not entirely sure how long this is gonna happen or if, you know, when the pandemic officially subsides, will it go back to normal? And what they told me was we don't know yet.

ERICA: Sabrina Moreno is a healthcare reporter for Axios. Thanks, Sabrina.

SABRINA: Thank you.

A supply and demand mismatch for remote jobs

ERICA: Here’s one new work headline for you on this Monday:

There’s a huge mismatch between the demand for remote work and the supply of remote jobs.

Here’s a snapshot of LinkedIn data that tells the story: A staggering 50% of the applications people are sending through LinkedIn are for work-from-home positions. But just 15% of all job postings on LinkedIn are advertising remote work at all.

We’ll be watching what happens next because poll after poll has told us that workers aren’t willing to compromise on flexibility at work. In many cases, they’d rather quit than be called back to the office full-time.

But as the number of remote jobs keeps dwindling and the hot labor market shows signs of cooling down, economists are predicting that the power is going to swing back in the direction of the companies.

In a moment, Iranian protestors call for a strike.

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Pressure mounts in Iran's protests

ERICA: Welcome back to Axios Today. I’m Erica Pandey.

Protesters in Iran are calling for a three day economic strike, just as conflicting reports emerged that Iran is abolishing its Morality Police. This all comes after months of protests over the death of 22 year old Mahsa Amini. She was detained by Iran’s Guidance Patrol for an alleged violation of the country’s dress code for women, the mandatory hijab.

Activists and family members say she was beaten by the police, which authorities deny. The Washington Post’s Miriam Berger is a reporter covering the Middle East and she has the latest on this. Hi Miriam!

MIRIAM BERGER: Hi. Thanks for having.

ERICA: We're talking on Sunday night here. At this point, is the morality police being eliminated or not?

MIRIAM: So right now we don't fully know. The Attorney General made statements that the morality police had been suspended, abolished, and were not under the control of the judiciary. Though the judiciary would continue to, you know, impose and monitor, strict codes around women's dress and, and other restrictions. We haven't had any official statements from the Interior Ministry or other high level officials. So we have these kinds of conflicting statements going on. It could have been an intentional kind of disinformation or information sort of put out there to test the waters, or it could signal a change is happening. And if that's the case, we still don't quite know what that change will look like in practice.

ERICA: What do we know about what it might mean for Iranian women if this group is disbanded?

MIRIAM: Since the start, Iran's clerical leaders have doubled down saying they're not going to change the rule around hijab. There have been some calls amongst reformist politicians, the very few that remain calling for rethinking a referendum on this issue. But, there's been no mainstream movement at all on that. And so on the one hand, there is still this very strict policy in place. On the other hand, you have women flaunting the rules all the time now, you know, marching in the streets, burning their hijab, going around everyday business without wearing one next to women who still are choosing to keep one on. And so, the law is still in place. But part of this uprising has been not just people calling for rights and more freedoms in the end of gender segregation, but enacting it day to day.

ERICA: The fact that we're even having this conversation, is this a development that's a result of the protests that have been ongoing since the fall?

MIRIAM: I would say it is, you know, since the start of the protests, the morality police have been at the heart of a lot of anger. So many women, so many families have stories of abuse at the hands of morality police or other, you know, security forces or Iranian authorities. But, when people took to the streets it was in part about this impunity, about this anger. The morality police symbolize a lot for people. The risks and the dangers are still there. The tools of suppression are still there.

ERICA: How are Iranians in the US reacting both to this development and just to the ongoing protest?

MIRIAM: The Iranian diaspora has been, you know, very vocal overall very supportive of the protest. Also, you know, personally hurt by what's happening inside the country. When we have news about what appears to perhaps be a concession made by the Iranian government. There's also some anger amongst people outside the country saying, let's not focus on this small possible development that, to some degree, could have a sort of PR element to it. Let's focus on other things, that said, this is something that happened, so we have to unpack it and report on it and see what it means.

ERICA: Miriam Berger is a reporter for the Washington Post covering the Middle East. Thanks, Miriam.

MIRIAM: Thank you.

ERICA: That’s all we’ve got for you today!

I’m Erica Pandey in for Niala Boodhoo - thanks for listening - stay safe and we’ll see you back here tomorrow morning.

Harvard professor Khalil Gibran Muhammad and journalist Ben Austen are friends, one Black and one white, who grew up together in Chicago. As adults, Khalil and Ben are still best friends, but they know that interracial friendships aren't going to solve the problems of a divided country. Listen to “Some of My Best Friends Are,” wherever you get podcasts, for real talks about the absurdities and intricacies of race in America.