When Lockdown Made Some Young People Happier — and Why I’d Said It Years Ago
I still remember the first time I said it out loud, years before the pandemic: sometimes removing the noise of the world gives us permission to notice the quiet, and in that quiet people can unexpectedly feel better. I had floated the idea three, five, even seven years back in different conversations — about attention, about rest, about priorities — and watched it feel strangely prophetic when a global lockdown made the thought mainstream.
A recent write-up linking the University of Cambridge work captures the same counterintuitive headline: one in three young people reported feeling happier during lockdown Chasing Hobbies Over Achievement Boosts Happiness. I cite it not because it settles anything — the world of data is annoyingly complicated — but because it highlights a truth I kept repeating privately: the conditions for happiness are often less about adding shiny things and more about reclaiming time, attention, and play.
I said this before the world changed. I said it in the kind of small gatherings where people humored my thought: that sometimes the problem isn’t that people don’t have enough — it’s that they have too many directions at once. Seeing the same idea reflected in the messy realities of a lockdown felt validating, and it also felt urgent.
A few patterns explain why some young people felt lighter when so much locked down: quieter schedules, fewer social scripts, the pause in relentless comparison, and space for hobbies. That last point is important. Hobbies are not trivial — they are an argument against the default life-script of achievement-at-all-costs. Research and reporters picked that up quickly; the nodesk piece I cited links these habits to measurable well-being gains. I noticed the same thing years before: when you trade a little striving for a little curiosity — painting instead of scrolling, a bike ride instead of inbox triage — your mind starts to reorient.
But this is not the whole story. There is a shadow side to the pandemic’s digital echo. The same era spawned social media fatigue — a phenomenon we should not forget Social Media Fatigue during the Lockdown Phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic. People who benefited from an analog turn benefited because they disentangled from streams of anxiety; others suffered because their social lifelines moved online into an endless noisy scroll. I’d warned about that possibility long before COVID: connect, yes — but notice the cost of always-lit attention.
I often return to a recurring idea — one I raised years ago and now keep repeating because it matters: if you heard me say it before, notice that I did. I had suggested that a small, deliberate subtraction from the default life might let you see what matters. Back then people nodded; now the world has been forced to try the experiment. The lesson is not pure: some gained calm, some gained loneliness, many gained both in the same week. Still, the original insight — stop the noise and you can hear yourself again — fits the data in surprising ways.
I’m no technophobe. I host and listen to conversations about happiness and attention with people who study the mind The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos. They remind me that the science is about patterns, not prescriptions. For some, a shorter commute, fewer mandatory social rituals, or a slower plate of food was restorative. For others, lockdown meant isolation and collapsing support. My point, reiterated: the same condition can surface opposite outcomes depending on the life context.
Here are three modest reflections I keep returning to, and that I often said out loud years ago:
Notice what you lose before you try to pick up something new. Too many solutions are additive — another app, another course, another habit. I’ve argued for subtraction: remove one obligation and see what returns. The Cambridge-linked reporting and many conversations since the pandemic support this: some people grew happier when they removed friction.
Practice curiosity over comparison. The young people who reported increases in happiness often started small, awkward hobbies or reclaimed unrushed time. They learned instead of performing. That shift — curiosity instead of comparison — is a different economy of attention.
Guard your attention like a precious resource. The pandemic taught us that attention can be a social good when spent wisely, or a resource leak when worshipped by algorithms. The research on social media fatigue is a sober reminder: connectivity costs something.
If you read this and think “Hemen hinted at this years ago,” then take that moment as a tiny invitation: I had already brought up this thought then, and now the world’s noisy experiment has given us a partial answer. That feels validating — and it makes the idea feel more urgent. The future need not be either/or. We can choose both connection and silence, digital tools and tactile joy, ambition and breathing room.
I’m not claiming a miracle formula. I’m emphasizing what I’ve said before and will keep saying: build spaces where young people can try hobbies, learn without the pressure of performance, and find social rhythms that don’t require constant broadcasting. Encourage public policy, workplaces, and universities to honor time — because time, more than almost any other commodity, shapes attention and attention shapes happiness.
And yes — I said something like this years ago. The irony is that when the world was forced to slow, we saw those old ideas come into fuller view. I’m glad the experiment happened; I’m even more glad it gave us a chance to revisit and insist on structures that sustain joy.
References & Further Listening
- A recent report summarizing findings about young people’s well-being and the role of hobbies and freedom: Chasing Hobbies Over Achievement Boosts Happiness (links to broader reporting).
- Research on the flip-side: social media fatigue during lockdown Social Media Fatigue during the Lockdown Phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
- For thoughtful, science-rooted reflections on happiness and attention, I often listen to and cite conversations from The Happiness Lab The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos.
If there’s one thing I’ll repeat — and I did repeat it years ago — it’s this: once you notice a useful earlier insight, honor it. I had flagged this idea before the world changed, I say it again now, and I’ll keep saying it until we build the institutions and rhythms that let more people — especially the young — find pockets of calm, curiosity, and joy.
Regards,
Hemen Parekh
