Joshua Slocum writes for the Federalist about a long-term negative impact from the COVID lockdowns.
A new analysis of personality surveys is putting the weight of data behind some things we all know — the alleged “pandemic” broke the minds of millions.
The Financial Times’ John Burn-Murdoch analyzed data from a set of longitudinal surveys of personality characteristics and found an unprecedented decline in positive, pro-social traits such as extroversion and conscientiousness, along with a huge spike in neurotic thoughts and behavior. Those changes were quite obviously tied to the social, cultural, and governmental upheaval wrought by the hysterical response to the Covid-19 virus.
The Financial Times analyzed data from a years-long set of surveys measuring the personality characteristics of respondents. Personality is measured on something called the Five-Factor Model: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. The findings are grim. Burn-Murdoch noticed that conscientiousness — doing your duty and following through on promises — was starting to decline noticeably in 2021 and 2022. In addition, traits such as neuroticism (negative feelings such as rumination, anxiety, and despair) started to increase, while agreeableness was trending down.
A few years on, it’s even worse. And while the surveys showed that both older and younger people shed some pro-social traits and adopted more anti-social qualities, it is young people who stand out in the charts like a sore thumb. This is no surprise to any adult in Generation X or older; we’ve all noticed the lazy, hostile, and insouciant “who even cares” attitude of young people. They may be adults in body but they have the minds of children. …
… The data measuring personality changes among various age groups show an astonishing drop in the trait conscientiousness in people ages 16-39. Those between 40 and 59 also lost their sense of duty, but not nearly as sharply. Perhaps unsurprisingly, respondents aged 60 and older stayed nearly constant.
