Retention of Positive and Negative Memories of School from the COVID-19 Pandemic for High School Juniors
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.58445/rars.3994Keywords:
COVID-19 pandemic, Trauma, Memory bias, Adolescent memory, Memory retention, Age-related memory differences, Phenomenological studyAbstract
The retention of memories from the COVID-19 pandemic has been studied across various age groups to understand the impact of trauma on memory. The majority of research on this topic indicates that older adults retain more positive memories of the pandemic, while younger adults retain more negative memories or equal amounts of negative and positive memories. Previous research has not focused on memory retention of the pandemic for those under the age of 18 when the pandemic began, and thus has not found whether current adolescents retained more positive or negative memories from the pandemic. This study addresses the lack of research on memory retention of the pandemic for current adolescents by utilizing a phenomenological approach involving interviews with high school student participants to explore whether students retained more positive or negative memories and sentiments from the pandemic. The study found that participants retained far more negative than positive memories, highlighting adolescents’ tendencies to recall more negative memories and suggesting that memory is affected by trauma. This study’s findings indicate that age can impact memory retention, which stresses the need for the development of trauma health counseling services for teens.
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