“I Think It’ll All Blow Over in the End”: How Young People Perceive the Impact of COVID-19 on Their Future Orientations - March 2022 (original) (raw)

Since the beginning of 2020, the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and its lockdowns have changed the current lives of young people drastically. Given the importance of future orientations for young people’s mental well-being, it is important to investigate if and how this lockdown affected young people’s future orientations. In this study, 34 Dutch young people (aged 16-24) with diverse backgrounds were interviewed during the lockdown of spring 2020 in the Netherlands. Results showed that young people experienced effects of COVID-19 on their current lives and short-term futures, but according to these young people, their long-term futures were not affected by the first COVID-19 lockdown. The latter finding may be explained by young people’s assumed temporality of the pandemic, their general optimistic attitudes, two-track thinking, strong feelings of agency, and flexibility.