Are Virtual Spaces Safer for People With Social Anxiety?

Virtual educational spaces are far from minimizing social anxiety. People suffer social anxiety even behind the “comfort” of a webcam.

This past March, the transfer from school classrooms to virtual classes taught on various online platforms due to the COVID-19 health contingency began. Although it might seem that this would give a breather to people with social anxiety, on the contrary, it did not do anything except to worsen some of their symptoms. According to the MSD Manual for Consumers, people who have social phobia, a type of anxiety disorder, experience anxiety to such an extent that they try to avoid social situations, or they confront them, but with significant discomfort. The annual prevalence of social anxiety is about 9% for women and 7% for men. About 13% of people develop it at some point in their lives.

Social phobia has diverse manifestations in people, such as concerns that their actions or behavior in public may be inappropriate, worrying about losing their train of thought, or not finding the right words to express themselves adequately. People usually fear not living up to expectations, being judged, or being rejected. In some cases, social anxiety is linked to specific public situations such as talking, eating, appearing before an audience, meeting new people, or maintaining a conversation. So one would expect that in quarantine, social anxiety would decrease in those who have this condition, due to not having to face public situations.

However, this is not the case. In the face of the coronavirus, people with anxiety disorders are in a condition of greater fragility. In the first place, people with social phobia need to feel secure. However, that security is impossible because no one can control what will happen, nor even know what is going to occur today. Second, some inconveniences come with moving the classes to the digital platforms. A double effort must be made to concentrate on what the professors say and to avoid distractions like social media. Also, keeping the camera on during the whole class is a measure to check that students are paying attention and knowing who is interacting; however, for many people, this is overwhelming.

Various applications such as Hangouts or Zoom enlarge the image, in this case, the face of the person talking. Paige Thompson said in an interview for the Washington Post that her social anxiety has doubled since she began working under this model. “When it started, I felt uncomfortable. Sometimes I smile when situations are awkward. I did this on camera, and I felt ashamed that people saw it.” So she turned off the camera.

Although it may seem like a remote probability, one may also be afraid that someone will set their box so that they will appear full-screen on that person’s computer. So there is an enormous emotional effort to seem even more interested, maintain correct posture, and show proper facial expressions in response to what is being discussed. Ellen Hendriksen, a clinical psychologist, affirms that people suffer social anxiety because they feel there is a “good way to be” and a “bad way to be.” They believe that people will look down on them if they go outside the parameters of “normal” or “appropriate.” Hence, they always seek to achieve what they consider to be perfection in whatever situation occurring.

In a video call, you are more aware of yourself than when in a conversation in person because you can perceive yourself on the camera, follow each movement, and be thinking about them before and after doing them. So, when trying to fit in, many people try to read the body language of others to imitate them. However, these situations can be challenging because, on these platforms, you can only see the head and shoulders of a person. Even facial expressions can be challenging to read, especially if the other person is moving and reacting to things happening in their space.

When another person is reacting to something happening in their environment, this can increase the insecurity felt by the speaker who suffers from social anxiety, because the speaker will not know for sure if the cause is something he or she said or external factors. This happened to me during a presentation I was giving in a virtual class. While I was doing well in the beginning, in one moment, I turned to see the boxes of my classmates on the screen. I saw the indifference of some or even the smiles of others, which made me lose track of what I was saying, and so I concluded as quickly as possible.

While it is almost impossible to determine all the effects that the pandemic will leave behind that impact people’s mental health, experts predict an increase in social phobias. Given the diminution in social contact, there could be a rise in avoiding, which would intensify phobias. However, everything will depend on each person. As Candela Molina, a general health psychologist and the coordinator of Cepsim, comments for the ABC Daily. “We must take into account our resources of survival and individual and community resilience.”

There is no doubt that the pandemic has generated a contextual crisis in the human being and his ability to face the unknown. The move from the physical to the digital, instead of giving a respite to people with social anxiety, puts them in a situation of greater fragility. It is not possible to know for sure what will be the total impact of the pandemic. After all, each head is a world of its own, and a person’s mental strength and resilience will determine his or her ability to confront the situations that arise. All that can be done for the moment is to turn off the camera, even if it is a few minutes. If the professor allows it, hide the boxes of the attendees when the teacher or someone is sharing a screen, or just let the platform run in the background while taking notes on the first.

It is okay to take a few breaks. Remember, you are not the only person who might need it. After all, we are in this together.

Translation by Daniel Wetta.

Driveth Razo

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This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0