Being a Teenager during the COVID-19 PandemicThe COVID-19 pandemic impacted the lives of millions of people worldwide, among them teenagers who, due to social distancing measures, were deprived of socializing with their peers, school and people outside their closest family context. This research investigated the experience of being a teenager during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sartre’s progressive-regressive or biographical method was used, based on regressive analysis and progressive synthesis, to collect the testimonies of eight teenagers who answered the question: “what was the lived experience of being a teenager during the COVID-19 pandemic like for you”? Data analysis involved four stages: transcription of statements from phenomenological interviews; phenomenological reduction of transcribed statements; elaboration of units of meaning; and interpretation of situation structures. From the research results, the following categories or units of meaning emerged: professional choice; suicide as a phenomenon of existence; influence of society; emotional repercussions; social relationships; social isolation in education; and return to face-to-face contact. The research revealed feelings such as fear, sadness, anguish and anxiety as a result of the limitations imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescents’ projects of being.
Keywords:
Adolescence; COVID-19; Existential phenomenology; Sartre