Social Media and Attachment Post Covid-19

Cheyanne Richardson, Verrazzano Class of 2024, completed major in Psychology and minor in East Asian Studies

Deciding on a topic for my capstone was the most difficult part of the process, as I am interested in so many things, such as East Asian cultures. I was originally trying to find something that related to Psychology and Korean culture. When that topic didn’t go anywhere, I thought about how we are living post Covid-19 and how that has affected how we speak and interact with people.

From personal experience, I know that it was hard for me to socialize normally since we were using Zoom and social media to stay connected. I thought about how I dived deep into social media and how it was getting harder for me to stay off of it and to be present and in the moment when there were people around. That was when my topic was born. I thought about how people had to have been experiencing the same thing as me and I wanted to know if it affected people differently based on their countries.

It was difficult to find Covid-19 related research in the beginning of 2023. I was abroad in South Korea during that time, and I found it difficult to read through countless articles when they did not give me a direct path on which to continue. Therefore, I mainly focused on the positives and negatives of how social media has had an effect on how people form attachments to others before Covid-19.

I knew it was just a waiting game for the pandemic related research to come out since it was still being investigated. I continued to check into the library and see if anything new would pop up, but nothing. I was getting discouraged and thought about switching my topic altogether. When the fall semester began, I decided to give it one last try, and I hit the jackpot. I remember being so excited that I stayed up the entire night because I was completely fascinated on what people found. I asked my professor at the time to become my mentor because she gave me so much support and encouragement even though I felt completely lost. This was my first time doing a capstone and I felt like I was failing and not doing enough. Dr. Alisha Johnson was always there for me to help me get my feelings out about this stressful process, and she taught me to believe more in myself as well as be proud of my work.

Looking back on my entire capstone experience, I can smile brightly because I did it. I considered not doing the capstone and graduating without the honor’s program, but I thought that was such as waste and a disservice to me, since I already survived four years of being in honor’s classers and doing community service and VELAs. Don’t get me wrong, the capstone itself can be a pain and stressful. There will be tears and worries and outright mental breakdowns. What I can say is, be kind to yourself and that you will get through this. I wish I had been kind on myself, but I had people to give me that support. For example, I had my best friend read my paper. I was close to vomiting because I was so worried about what she would think. She called me and said that it was an amazing topic. She is a literature major so she helped me fix my paper a bit. Overall, she said it was easy for her to understand since she has no background knowledge on the topic, and that I did a beautiful job on getting my point across. I remember feeling really proud and that was an accomplishment for me since other papers that she helped me with didn’t make sense. For her to completely keep all of my original ideas shows my sense of growth as a writer and a student.