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Although we are all experiencing the same pandemic at the same time, people are suffering from varying degrees of cognitive overload. If the distal goal is to increase the likelihood someone practices safe Covid-19 behavior. Then we must look at who could benefit the most from reframing their current situation within the pandemic. Dr. Amy Nivette and colleagues conducted a longitudinal study to evaluate which cohort is least likely to practice Covid-19 protocols. What they found was that the adolescent cohort was least likely to abide by such regulations. Furthermore, the authors found that important risk factors that would strengthen this negative relationship were; “low acceptance of moral rules, high engagement in delinquent behavior, and association with peers exhibit social deviance” (Nivette et al., 2021). Now we can interpret this in two ways; we can say that these children are already going down the wrong path and thus can’t be helped. Or rather we could look at these results and understand that all of these risk factors have an underlying idea of self in relation to their external environment. That is, individuals are exhibiting these behaviors because they see themselves as going against the flow of mainstream knowledge. This may stem from a multitude of avenues (that would take a separate paper to address) but the key point is to realize that this cohort group can benefit from using language to reframe their environment.

But how can we use language to make safe Covid19 behaviors pertain to the age-cohort of adolescents? We must take the invisible consequences unsafe Covid 19 behaviors present and make them tangible ideas for them. One way of doing this is through the use of metaphors. Laura Boroditsky explains “Metaphors provide a framework for thinking about abstract concepts like ideas and intelligence, as well as complex social and health issues like crime, the economy, and cancer, by drawing on structured knowledge from a semantically unrelated domain” (Boroditsky, 2017, p.1). The key point here is that we can use language to relate unrelated domains to each other. However, there is a caveat: for a metaphor to be effective there has to be a certain level of familiarity within one domain to effectively understand the concept in an unrelated abstract domain. So we would want to structure the metaphors by using criteria to ensure the effectiveness. These criteria could include ideas such as familiarity and comprehension. Familiarity can be thought of as how relevant the metaphor is to that individual. In our case, we would want to connect an abstract concept such as the importance of practicing safe Covid behaviors to a domain they are familiar with such as using a helmet when skateboarding. A higher degree of familiarity then would lead to higher levels of comprehension which is the ultimate goal. It doesn’t matter how well someone can articulate a metaphor if the intended audience is unfamiliar with the source domain. What matters is simplicity while also conveying the structure you intend to provide to individuals. Moreover, metaphors are an effective tool in offering a template to guide people’s thinking. We can then use metaphors that are high in familiarity to boost comprehension which will help people derive conclusions on their own accord. But these conclusions won’t just be any conclusion a person can make but rather it will be limited to the framework we provide to them. Thus we can use metaphors to help point people towards the problem and towards appropriate solutions.

As of recently, Vaccines for the Covid virus have arrived on the scene just waiting until I can receive my vaccine”. Until herd immunity is achieved this vaccine, but this does not mean the protocol behaviors are not warranted. While you might think: “Wait what? Although a big step in the right direction it does not mean we can stop practicing safe behaviors. Although the pervasive message in our society is that once an individual is vaccinated they have a get-out-of-jail-free card. They can return to normal behaviors with little worry of contracting the disease. While there is a kernel of truth to that statement it doesn’t paint the whole picture, relatively little is known about whether people who are vaccinated can act as vectors to transmit the disease. With that being said we still need to use language to properly address the potential dangers of Covid-19 regardless if you are vaccinated or not. If we do this, this will maintain credence as to how dangerous this disease truly is and help frame how we should act. To relate this to the opening scenario, 87% of students in the survey believe themselves to be procrastinators because they use their language to describe themselves as such. Furthermore, because they reinforce these ideas they behave by following that belief. This goes to show how prevalent our conceptualization of oneself in the environment is. Seeing how words carry such enormous weight that influences our health, relationships and motivations it is wise to understand how words can impact our behavior for better and for worse. Words serve as alternatives for actions, emotions, and thoughts. Therefore when we choose our words, we need to think outside of what we wish to say and instead adjust them to, but about how we wish people to feel or do.

However, with such ambiguity given to us by the pandemic, it is difficult to delineate when and how to use language to properly address our situation. What we can do is stay connected. Physically distancing does not mean social or emotional distance. We can accomplish this by picking up the phone and calling loved ones. Or better yet we could write letters or send emails expressing the emotions we are feeling at the time. Furthermore, we could use language to make note of our strengths and start a gratitude journal to track our growth through a traumatic time. On the other hand, we are going through a pandemic which is a traumatic experience for many people so we should be cognizant of some Don’ts. We shouldn’t remain silent. If you see someone not practicing safe Covid 19 protocols in public we can encourage those individuals to abide by the rules. Another big “don’t”, don’t just watch every bit of information about Covid19, that is not to say don’t be informed. But rather, not all sources are reliable and can report exaggerated details that ultimately contribute to the problem. While we navigate through a time where there are so much uncertainty and such high consequences I will leave you with this quote.

“Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate, and to humble.” – Berg film company