A longitudinal study of how the COVID-19 pandemic altered college students’ social networks

• In Event: 30414 - New Approaches to Recurring Issues in the Sociology of Higher Education

Abstract

This paper uses longitudinal interview and survey data from 2017-2021 to examine how the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted college students’ social networks, and whether social network disruptions were associated with students’ racial, ethnic, and/or social class background. Emerging research has shown how the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to college students’ academic struggles (de Boer 2021; Velásquez-Rojas et al. 2022), and mental health struggles, including heightened anxiety, boredom, social isolation, and feelings of despair (Aristovnik et al. 2020; Copeland et al. 2021; Islam 2022). However, there is little research on how the pandemic affected the social lives of college students. In this study, we study how institutional response to the pandemic disrupted college students’ social lives to effectively force them to re-assemble their friendship networks, affecting their ability to maintain supportive social connections during the pandemic. Although students were relieved of most of the university structures guiding propinquity and interaction, we find that social class strongly patterns the degree of agency students were able to enact, resulting in largely homophilous networks among wealthier students and smaller, more local networks among low-income students. We conclude that students’ pre-existing social capital, in terms of both college friendships and familial support, play an important role in affording them agency in transforming or preserving their friendship networks, and therefore determine in part their satisfaction with friendship experiences through the pandemic.

Authors

• David Song, University of Oklahoma

• Anthony Lising Antonio, Stanford University