Pandemic has left college student alone and depressed: survey.
A large number of Japan's college students report having endured serious psychological health issues as a result of the prolonged widespread, including loneliness, depression and decreased motivation, a new survey shows.
Sophomores, who are ready to attend few classes face to face since entering universities in spring last year and have rarely had opportunities to satisfy others in their age bracket, emerged as especially impacted by the fallout from the health crisis.
That is among the findings of the survey on campus life conducted by the National Federation of University Cooperative Associations.
“One time I could not get out of bed for three days or so,” said Naoki Aoshima, a second-year student at Meiji Gakuin University, who attended a news conference to announce the findings. A friend of his has developed a mental disorder, he added.
Results of the web survey were released on August 10. The survey, conducted in July, covered seven thousand six hundred and thirty-seven university students.
Respondents were asked what they're anxious about and will choose multiple answers. While 66.7 per cent of all the students selected the answer “anxiety about the future,” the figure rose to 74.1 per cent among sophomores.
A total of 45.3 per cent of students overall said they “feel like doing nothing out of laziness,” while 51.4 per cent of second-year students said they felt that way.
Respondents who said they were “depressed” accounted for 41.6 per cent of scholars overall and 47.1 per cent of these in their second year.
A total of 33.0 per cent of all students and 39.2 per cent of sophomores said that they feel “lonely and restless about not being connected to friends.”
The survey also covered thoughts of suicide and feelings of alienation among students, with 19.5 per cent of all respondents saying they “do not want to live anymore,” and 22.7 per cent of sophomores answering that way.
A total of 18.7 per cent of all respondents said they felt “ostracized from everywhere,” while 24.3 per cent of second-year students said they felt that way.
Sophomores with fewer than five friends accounted for 35.1 per cent, much more than 31.2 per cent for freshmen and a few 19 per cent for juniors and seniors.
A total of seven .3 per cent of second-year students had no friends, compared with 5.8 per cent of freshmen.
As many as approximately 40 per cent of the surveyed students answered that they want college operators to “create chances to build links with classmates within the campus,” “resume and promote after-school activities (of social circles and clubs)” and “offer opportunities to form connections with college superiors inside the campus.”
The questionnaire also came with a comment section where people could open up about their experiences with anxiety.
Opinions from sophomores included, “I tackled doing homework at midnight while sobbing in depression” and “I even think I should not have entered college.”
“What relationships you'll build differs greatly counting on whether one has in-person classes, and this forces people that don't often come (to campus) to be increasingly isolated,” another second-year student pointed out.
One senior asked for “help because I just spend days in a small apartment to guard myself against the coronavirus so it's difficult to take care of my psychological health.”
“I haven't any part-time shifts and thus no money so I can not refresh myself by eating out,” a junior wrote. “My assignments make it impossible on behalf of me to spend time with friends, so I am always depressed and can not sleep soundly within the dark or awaken in the morning.”
Shigeru Yamamoto, a specially appointed professor of support for children at Taisho University, who is intimate measures to prevent students from throwing in the towel of faculty, called on university operators to take steps over the issue.
“Colleges should cash in of the web to carry online sessions in small groups with the most objective of helping people build connections with one another," Yamamoto said.
“To improve training programs for lecturers, it is also important to select up good examples, like having teachers write comments on essays the scholars submit once they return them so students can improve,” he added.
(This article was written by Hajime Ueno and Senior Staff Writer Fumio Masutani.)
SOURCE
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14417200