In 2020, we all picked up a few new  habits.

Maybe you started weekly video   calls with your childhood friends  that you had fallen out of touch   with. Or you might have learned a  new skill like making sourdough.

Some of us, you know, learned the  skill of rotting on the couch for   25 hours straight, but that’s a skill… I promise. Of course, not all of those new habits were good  for us. Studies show that a lot of people started   drinking more alcohol than they used to and  driving more recklessly during the pandemic.

The lockdowns have been lifted for years now. But  those habits? Well, some of them stuck around.

Here’s the data on which pandemic  habits have made their way into our   “new normal” and which have been  discarded like a used COVID test. [♪ INTRO] The first thing on this list set a new record during the pandemic, lasting 27 hours and 16 minutes. And no, it’s not the longest monopoly  game ever played. That record was over 70 days!

This new record was for the fastest  solo Cannonball run, the unofficial…and   illegal… race across the US from New York  City to Los Angeles. This daredevil’s road   trip averaged a speed of around 105 miles  per hour, well over the speed limit of   any US road. And while the Cannonball run  is an extreme example, it turns out that   people were participating in riskier driving  all around the world during the pandemic.

Since fewer people were out and about  as a precautionary measure to reduce   the spread of COVID, those who were  out driving early in the pandemic   had the roads to themselves.  And they took advantage of it. In Greece and Saudi Arabia, drivers were  more likely to speed, brake harshly,   use phones behind the wheel, and  even drive under the influence. And a study in Oregon found that fatal crashes  increased by about 3%, despite average miles   traveled going down by about 10% from 2019  to 2020, and total crashes dropping by 20%.

That study found people were speeding especially   in areas with mid-range limits,  around 45-55 miles per hour. Similar patterns showed up all  over the US and around the world. But when the lockdowns ended, we kept  speeding.

The US continues to see   increased rates of risky driving  compared to pre-pandemic levels,   with national speeding-related fatalities  still 20% higher than pre-pandemic rates. Although the national speeding-related deaths  are still high relative to pre-pandemic,   rates are coming down from their peak  in 2021 by about 3% each year. So maybe   we’re just checking in a little too soon  to see the full recovery of safer driving.

While some people were out  speeding on empty roads,   a lot of kids were stuck inside,  not really going …. well, anywhere. As the world slowed down, access to organized  sports and healthy school meals also vanished.   And in their wake, screen time went up  and physical activity went way down. This combo led to an increase in  childhood obesity rates across the board,   raising serious concerns among pediatricians.

In one of the most robust studies on the  topic, researchers found that obesity   rates among children in England surged,  rising by 45% among 4-5 year olds and by   20% among 10-11 year olds between the  2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school years. The natural question is: what happened  when the kids went back to school? And   the answer depends on what grade they returned to.

In both groups, obesity rates  dropped in the 2021-2022 school   year compared to the year before, but  the percentage of 10-11 year olds who   were obese was still significantly  higher than pre-pandemic levels. But there’s some good news: the kids ages  4-5 returned to pre-pandemic obesity levels,   suggesting that these effects can be reversed  especially if you change habits at a young age. Encouraging activity and good nutrition for  kids really matters.

The pandemic may have been   a wake up call in this regard, highlighting the  importance of routines that support kids’ health. Besides, it is really fun to watch a herd of four   year olds try and figure out how to play soccer for the first time. And running up and down the sidelines  has its own benefits for you too,   because staying home wasn’t exactly  heart-healthy for grown ups either.

In the decade leading up to COVID,  the US had been making real progress   in reducing heart disease related  deaths, with a drop of about 9%. But in 2020, that trend reversed. Rates of heart disease mortality increased by  9.3%, basically erasing a decade of progress   in just one year.

Stroke deaths increased by  8.5%, and heart attack deaths increased by 2.5%. You might think that this is another  consequence of being less active and   eating differently during lockdown, and that’s  part of it. But there’s more to the story.

We know that preventative care also took  a hit. People postponed doctors visits,   meaning early signs of heart  disease may have also been missed. But the real kicker is that COVID  infections themselves may directly   contribute to heart disease.

There seems  to be a relationship between how sick you   get with COVID and how likely you  are to have future cardiac events. Perhaps because of that correlation, this trend  didn’t seem to let up as the lockdowns ended.   We are still seeing increases in death by  heart disease in the US by about 3% each   year as of 2022. So if you’re watching this  and can’t remember the last time you went   in for a doctor’s visit, it might be time to  set something up and check on the ol’ ticker.

But one thing we don’t have to remind you  to do is check the ol’ TikTok. Because it   seems like everybody started using it and  other forms of social media obsessively. Speaking of social media use, ads are a big part of it, and of this video.

Here's one now. Thanks to Brilliant for  supporting this SciShow video! Brilliant is an interactive online  learning platform designed to help   you expand your horizons at your own pace.

You can take it slow, completing a little at  a time whenever it fits into your schedule,   or you can binge lessons like  your favorite TV show and gain   knowledge way faster than any in person  classroom schedule would allow for. Flexible pacing helps you keep up  with your lessons and get a little   done every day. That way, you’ll make a healthy   habit of learning.

And Brilliant’s daily  encouragement can keep you going too. To try Brilliant for free,  visit brilliant.org/scishow,   scan the QR code onscreen, or click the link in   the video description. You’ll also get  20% off an annual premium subscription.

Before the pandemic, the average person  was on social media for 55 minutes a day.   And during lockdown, that number rose  to 65 minutes. I know 10 minutes   doesn’t sound like a huge difference,  but that’s more than a 15% increase! And it was seen across almost all  platforms, but TikTok was the breakout star.

Honestly, this one probably makes sense  to you, watching this video on YouTube.   You know that the internet is full of  people to interact with and an infinite   number of rabbit holes to fall down. With  many of our normal activities shut down,   people turned to the internet  for entertainment and connection. Now, it's hard to say if this was  an unusual increase or just part   of a larger trend since social  media use was already climbing.   But what is clear is that people kept  scrolling even after lockdowns eased.

A 2023 Pew Research Center survey  describes a 12% increase in TikTok   use and stable use of sites like  YouTube and Facebook since 2021. And we at SciShow are pretty happy that  YouTube is still holding strong as the   most popular social media site  in the US. Thanks for being here.

The thing is, not every corner of the  internet is as positive. And let’s   just say doom scrolling hasn’t been the  best thing for everyone’s mental health. With the rise of the pandemic, rates of  depression and anxiety increased quite   a bit.

Globally, both major depressive  and anxiety disorders rose by about 25%. The pandemic was a scary, confusing,   and very stressful time. We were faced with  financial instability, and social isolation,   and risk of illness and death.

Not to mention  all of the weird new customs we had to get   used to like disinfecting our groceries and social distancing 6ft apart. Increases in depression and anxiety were a very   normal response to this kind of  stressful, unprecedented event. And it’s also a normal adaptive response for  both our minds and our societies to return to   how they were before the pandemic, which is what  we’re starting to see in the data.

Recent studies   show that rates of stress and anxiety have  gone back down to pre-COVID baseline levels. That is truly excellent news! However, this isn’t the case for all disorders,   as the pandemic exacerbated another troubling  problem in the

US: the opioid epidemic. Deaths from drug overdoses increased  substantially during the pandemic,   with 60% more overdose deaths in  May 2020 compared to May 2019. The opioid epidemic in the US was on  the rise before most of us had ever even   heard the word COVID. But the pandemic and  subsequent lockdowns made things much worse.

On an individual level, they exacerbated social   isolation and despair, which are  both risk factors for addiction. And on a systemic level, drug supply chains  were disrupted. And this may sound like   a good thing because fewer drugs means fewer drug deaths.

But it doesn’t quite work like that.   Because instead, drug traffickers shifted  to moving smaller, more potent batches,   which increased overdose risks. Plus, inconsistent  access meant that people’s tolerances dropped,   so that if you returned to using the same  amount as before, now it would prove deadly. Unfortunately, these problems have stuck around,   even after many of the other effects  of the pandemic have faded.

We’re still   seeing significantly higher drug overdose deaths as of 2023 compared to pre-pandemic levels. Researchers point to drug poisoning as the  main reason for the continued high death rate,   and as grim as that is, we’ve got one  more stat that's also really concerning. Most types of crime decreased during lockdown,   since people weren’t exactly out  shoplifting from department stores.

Which is great news! But, uh, the US  murder rate jumped 30% from 2019 to 2020. That’s the largest increase  in more than a century.

This trend wasn’t seen globally.  So it’s just a shining example   of American “exceptionalism.” And  here’s what might make us so special: For one thing, the number of guns purchased  during the pandemic increased… a lot. Nearly 23 million guns were sold in 2020,   up from 14 million in 2019. Since having a gun in  the home increases the odds of a deadly incident,   including murder or suicide, it’s likely  that this contributed to the trend.

Society also changed in ways that may  have contributed to rising gun violence.   Lockdowns disrupted many social  support programs, right when the   stresses of the pandemic and growing financial  insecurity made them more essential than ever. But as bizarre as it sounds, talking  about murder actually gives us a chance   to end on a positive note. These  trends seem to be reversing now,   with the murder rate decreasing by 11% in  2023, and by 26% in the first part of 2024.

So we’re seeing that it’s not a problem  everywhere and it’s becoming less and   less of a problem as we keep putting  distance between us and those dark times. We were not all our best selves  in 2020. But in the years since,   in some ways, we’re turning the ship  around and heading into smoother waters.

It’s natural to pick up a few new habits when  circumstances change. But we have some control   over which habits we keep and which we replace  with new ones that would make the world a better place. So we completely forgive you if you’re still  spending more time on YouTube watching SciShow.

Through pandemics and  whatever else life may bring,   we hope this community of curious  people sticks around for a long time. [♪ OUTRO]