Has the Pandemic Turned Us Into Assholes?


Over the last year, bad behavior in public has become an epidemic in its own right.  Or so it seems.

The more well-known incidents are pandemic-adjacent and focus on masks.  There is the time when an Arizona "karen" wearing a $40,000 Rolex watch trashed a mask display at a Target. These mask-hole events have become so common that retailers are providing training to employees on dealing with them.

And it's not just in retail establishments. Last month an unruly passenger punched a flight attendant and knocked out two teeth in a confrontation over a mask. She's getting a $52,000 fine.  

But that is not the only such case. This year alone, there have been 2500 unruly passenger incidents, 1900 of which were mask-related. Through May, 394 of these were potential violations of the law.  That's more than twice the number observed in the entire year for both 2020 and 2019.

The thing is, it's not just pandemic-adjacent. There is also an rash of bad behavior by fans at sporting events:
  • A fan ran onto the court during game four of the 76ers v. Wizards NBA playoff game (but didn't make contact with players)
  • During an earlier game in that series, a fan dumped popcorn on Wizards player Russell Westbrook
  • A Knicks fan spat on Hawks player Trae Young
  • A Celtics fan was arrested for throwing a water bottle at Nets player Kyrie Irving
  • In the Nations League soccer final last week, Mexico fans threw bottles at USA players, and a fan ran onto the field during the same game
Throwing things at players and invading courts/fields is nothing new. As far as I know, there are no statistics kept on incidents like this, so it's hard to say for sure if there is an unusual level of incidents like this.

But it sure seems like I'm hearing about them more lately. Taken together with the other bad behavior noted above, its hard to resist the conclusion that the pandemic has awakened the inner asshole in many of us.

Negative psychological effects of the pandemic have been noted in several studies.  For example, depression rates have tripled.  Domestic violence incidents are spiking. Cases of stress and anxiety are skyrocketing.  

All these things make people irritable. I confess that I am more irritable than I was a year ago. Some of the blame for that goes to the former president's douchebaggery, but he's gone (sort of) and I'm still irritable.

There are a couple of studies that say it might be attributable to my doomscrolling in support of this blog (you're welcome). A study last year showed a high prevalence of mental health problems that were positively associated with social media exposure.  

Another study this year showed that people who were worried about the amount of pandemic information available (interestingly, not the quality) were 1.75 to 1.8 times more likely to report depression, anxiety, and/or severe psychological distress than people who do not worry about the quantity of information.

Hopefully this irritability and bad behavior will fade to normal levels as the pandemic, and news about it, fades. 

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay 

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