Pandemic a Relief for Some Beleaguered Teens.

• Position: MENTAL HEALTH

As the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic have eased, and in-person school and social activities resume, renewed interaction with friends and classmates is widely seen as an emotional boost for most teenagers, a group that reported increased anxiety and depression during the period of isolation, but it may be a different story for those teens whose social interactions before the pandemic were especially problematic; perhaps they were bullied or often got into fights at school. Are they happy to be back in the classroom?

"We think that of course teenagers want to be around their peers, but it's really not that simple," says Julie Hubbard, professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of Delaware and coauthor of a paper published in the journal Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology.

By chance, her team had just completed a large laboratory-based data collection effort with teens in February 2020, just before the pandemic upended school and social activities. The researchers, Hubbard indicates, decided to use that data to look into the effects of isolation on those with difficult peer relationships.

The...