By Kayla Cheung

The first “Roaring ‘20s” was an era of drastic social change. People came together not just to fight in World War I — but to reclaim their youth by celebrating it endlessly. 

One hundred years later, society enters that position once more. The youth gradually pick up the broken pieces of their social lives as America slowly regains normalcy in the post-climax stage of Covid-19.

Now into the 21st century, there has been a slew of societal downfalls. The worst came in the advent of a global pandemic that had put the world to a halt, costing young people ‘hands-on’ experiences to develop their skills during adolescence and early adulthood. 

Despite the coronavirus acting as a barrier between the youth and the social scenes of college campuses and high-schools, social media served as a door through which people have built connections with each other. As social distancing regulations loosen, more people reemerge into physical settings—and their media engagement expands noticeably. 

The pandemic infused a push to further engage with apps that encourage socialization and exploration with people their age. Reemerging into physical social scenes has not stalled their use of the internet — rather, it has increased in the form of apps that encourage exploration and socialization among people their age. 

“Dating apps have also come into play with Tinder and Hinge now being used by many students, especially during the pandemic where meeting new people can be considered risky.  Social media also helps people find out about cool events that they may not have known about otherwise. For example, I use the Bucket app (Online Bucket List App) and I have been able to discover lots of cool events/places to go in Florida that I did not know about before,” said Javier Amaya, a student at University of Central Florida. 

With new cases climbing daily in Florida, dating apps were risky suits throughout the thick of the pandemic. College campuses had concealed numerous events that students looked forward to. They no longer had the same ability to network, make friends, and relieve stress as college students usually do. 

“I am looking for more parties and for football season tailgates to come back. At UCF our Greek Life does socials and grab-a-dates which have not been allowed since covid started,” explains Amaya, a brother of Alpha Tau Omega.

As the pandemic nears its end, there is reason to be optimistic. Covid-19 vaccine roll outs accelerated over the past few months, summing up to a grand total of approximately 15 million across Florida and 200 million nationwide, according to the Center for Disease Control. 

This development has allowed for students like Amaya to begin making plans for the future, and see the bright light at the end of a dark, lonely tunnel. While the college experience diverged from its stereotypical party lifestyle, students have used their time in quarantine to look forward and live life to its fullest. They are coming out of the internal and external war, ready to explore the world after missing out on it for over a year. 

Though high-school students generally have less individual freedom than college students as their schedule is generally more regimented, they have also lost opportunities powered by socialization over the past year. A side-effect of their isolation is, in this case, introspection. Students were given the tools, or rather the space, to carve their own “Roaring 2020’s” with the knowledge of what has come before them and their adolescent experiences (or lack thereof). 

“I see things not being necessarily normal but just more open to new things, and the way we’re gonna do things is definitely gonna change. I think for me things will be way more reckless, because I’ve had so much time just to focus on myself and be comfortable with who I am, and now that I am, I wanna show that off and be open to everyone and to their opinions,” says Miami Lakes Educational Center Commercial Arts Sophomore Yassel Gorrin. 

Reminiscent of the original “Roaring 20’s”, Gorrin sees creative expression as a major part of the next decade as it pertains to young artists like him. Similar to the Art Deco movement of the 1920s, he sees eccentricity as a key part of his personality post-pandemic. 

“I know it’s gonna be a great time to make art, getting out there and just looking how much things have changed and how people have changed is gonna be such a great source of inspiration and show new ways to create,” says Gorrin. 

When imagining the next decade, it is easy to forecast the potential for chaos and rash decisions that young people could make. Yet, it isn’t the same as other generations in that they have equipped the internet to act as a padding for those rash decisions. College and high school students alike use social media and other mobile apps to organize their lives — even the parts that are generally more venturesome and spontaneous. 

“In our generation I feel like we have grown faster than our millennials and xennials, one of the main reasons is because of the internet. The internet has evolved and we evolve with it, everything we know, everything we do, everything we feel,” says Maria Pacheco, a sophomore at Acceleration Academies’ Central Miami Location. 

Today young peoples’ cognizance of societal issues is greater than that of those who lived through their own decade of splendor a century ago. With the internet, they have developed new ways to grow as individuals and project that onto the rest of their lives as they exit isolation and reemerge into society— like post-Covid debutantes.