- Position1 of 3›
- No, quarantine is not bad for our mental health
Learning a new skill has positive mental health outcomes. Quarantines afford people the time to do this.
The argument
Developing new skills can have a positive impact on your mental health. Lifelong learning and education have been linked with increased overall satisfaction and reduced levels of anxiety and depression. Those that continue to develop new skills and abilities into adulthood also have higher levels of self-esteem and are more optimistic. With nothing else to do, many people are using their free time to learn to code, bake, or start a new language learning course. These will all have long-term positive mental health impacts.
Context
Many are using the quarantine period to develop or learn a new skill.
Premises
Counter-arguments
Critics argue that the availability of an upside does not show quarantine is not bad for mental health on the whole. The chance to learn a skill is unevenly distributed: people juggling caregiving, essential work, cramped or unsafe housing, job loss or financial stress often have neither the time nor the mental space, so the benefit accrues mainly to the already-comfortable while others bear isolation's costs. A coping avenue open to some does not offset harm spread across many. They add that the 'use the time productively' framing can itself add pressure, with people made to feel they are failing if they do not emerge from lockdown with a new language or side project. Meanwhile evidence from lockdowns pointed to rising loneliness, anxiety and depression regardless of hobbies taken up. On this view learning a skill can help an individual cope, but it does not establish that quarantine is not, in general, bad for mental health.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P2] Critics note the time and space to learn a skill are unevenly available — caregiving, essential work, poor housing and financial stress exclude many — so the opportunity is not general enough to offset quarantine's harms. [Rejecting C] That some people benefit from learning a skill does not show quarantine is not bad for mental health overall; documented rises in loneliness, anxiety and depression during lockdowns weigh against the conclusion.