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Like Pakistan, India also stigmatizes mental health and the problems that are associated with it; With one person saying that "usually, the public believes that individuals with psychiatric illnesses are incompetent, irrational and untrustworthy” (Mitra,2020). India is also an enormous country that lacks the necessary mental health resources and services. 83% of people who are suffering from mental health problems do not have access to proper treatment, according to a 2016 National Health Survey (Mitra,2020). That same year India had around 3 psychiatrists for every 1 million people and even less psychologists (Mitra,2020).
METHOD OF ANALYSIS
Yet, unlike Pakistan’s dataset, there were no direct attributes that reported depression among Indian respondents but the attributes carried the traits related to mental health issue of feeling disconnected to families, close friends and relatives. We are using Rapidminer to see the pattern of Indian students feeling disconnected to families, close friends and relatives with the time spent on online class, rating of online class experience and change in weight. Tableau is used to visualize our findings during the pandemic. Besides, we are using the classification technique and decision tree algorithm to see the connection of families, close friends and relatives class.
DECISION TREE
From the decision tree, it can be concluded that students of all ages are having online classes. With lockdowns beginning March 24, many areas of society were closed, which included school, restaurants, and gyms. Most of the students have online classes from 3 to 8 hours per day. The students who had more than 5 hours of classes felt disconnected from the family and friends and the students who had less or 5 hours of online classes per day somewhat felt connected to the family and friends. About the rating of online class experience, it can be interpreted that students who rated the online classes to be excellent and good were feeling connected to the friends and family compared to the students who rated online class experience to be average or poor. Besides, students aged above 10 years old, who have average online class experience and their weight is decreased are more likely to feel disconnected. Also, students who spend more than 7 hours online class and have constant weight are more likely to feel disconnected from families, close friends and relatives. This data only shows those who could attend online schooling. Of many Indians, actually 75% of Indians do not have access to the internet from their homes. Majorly affecting rural communities where about only 15% have access to the internet, compared to urban communities where about 42% have access to the internet. Access to the internet has become a major stressor for many students. Even more disheartening is that only 8 of the population have access to a computer connection. Thus making a disparity between the haves and the have nots, which has made it difficult for many students to succeed in online classes, thus they fall behind their peers (Mahapatra,2020).
From the decision tree, it can be concluded that students of all ages are having online classes. With lockdowns beginning March 24, many areas of society were closed, which included school, restaurants, and gyms. Most of the students have online classes from 3 to 8 hours per day. The students who had more than 5 hours of classes felt disconnected from the family and friends and the students who had less or 5 hours of online classes per day somewhat felt connected to the family and friends. About the rating of online class experience, it can be interpreted that students who rated the online classes to be excellent and good were feeling connected to the friends and family compared to the students who rated online class experience to be average or poor. Besides, students aged above 10 years old, who have average online class experience and their weight is decreased are more likely to feel disconnected. Also, students who spend more than 7 hours online class and have constant weight are more likely to feel disconnected from families, close friends and relatives. This data only shows those who could attend online schooling. Of many Indians, actually 75% of Indians do not have access to the internet from their homes. Majorly affecting rural communities where about only 15% have access to the internet, compared to urban communities where about 42% have access to the internet. Access to the internet has become a major stressor for many students. Even more disheartening is that only 8 of the population have access to a computer connection. Thus making a disparity between the haves and the have nots, which has made it difficult for many students to succeed in online classes, thus they fall behind their peers (Mahapatra,2020).
PERFORMANCE OUTPUT
The performance model shows that 792 students felt connected to their families, close friends and relatives while 10 students felt disconnected. However, 15 students who are actually connected to their families, close friends and relatives are predicted to not be connected to them. Besides, 332 students who disconnect with them are predicted to be connected to their families, close friends and relatives. However, the accuracy of the model is acceptable when showing 69.80% of accuracy on how the model predicts students feel connected issues among Indian students.
DATA VISUALIZATION
GRAPH 1
GRAPH 1
From the trend of the bar graphs it can be seen that the change in body weight was there among the majority of the respondents. Most of the participants of this survey were in their late teens and early twenties. Among 18 to 22 years old respondents, around 55.2% students out of 696, reported unwanted weight gain or weight loss during pandemic. At the start of the pandemic at home confinements resulted in a decrease in all levels of physical activities and about 28% increase in daily sitting time as well as an increase in unhealthy eating patterns. These weight changes play a vital role in affecting the mental health of the youth. When people are depressed or anxious they lack motivation, some consume easy calories, some people sleep a lot, some lose appetite, however, it depends from person to person.
GRAPH 2
GRAPH 2
There were 1158 respondents, 347 students felt disconnected from their family members and friends. The disconnectivity or connectivity with family members followed the trend of decreasing as the age increased. However, 811 students were lucky to feel connected to family members and friends during the pandemic. Nevertheless, around 30% of the respondents felt disconnected during this challenging time. The age of some respondents who felt disconnected from family members and friends was as low as 8-12 years old. From 8 to 12 years old, there were 58 respondents and 16 felt disconnected at such a young age which can be very concerning.
RESEARCH
CHANGE IN WEIGHT IN INDIA
The study conducted on 58,745 patients shows there is a 55% risk of developing depression for people who had obesity while there is a 58% risk of obesity for people who had depression (Mediawire, 2020). The outbreak of COVID-19 and the steps taken to control it have had a noticeable effect on India's population's lifestyle choices. To avoid obesity and preserve general well-being, experts agree that lifestyle-related predictors of weight gain should be screened and discussed during COVID-19. COVID-19 marginally improved the eating behavior, yet a number of students gained weight as physical activity declined significantly coupled with an increase in screen and sitting time (Chopra et al., 2020). Mental health was also adversely affected.
ONLINE CLASS EXPERIENCE IN INDIA
The study found that online class has disadvantages of peer to peer learning which cause students to feel disconnected with friends and do not have friends to talk to. Building a friendship is very important to students in lower age groups to give excitement during online learning. Due to that, some students feel bored with online classes and leave a bad impression on the online class experience. Besides, experts said many students feel bored with online classes because of a lack of interaction and a sense of belonging (EducationWorld, 2020). Thus, students will experience emotional or mental distress throughout online learning.
There was an increase in reports of depression, anxiety, and suicide in extreme cases. Due to the closure of schools, some students began falling behind in academics, which increased stress and decreased academic performance. As a result, there was more stress and mental health issues. (Mahapatra,2020).
CONCLUSION
To conclude, it can be said that feeling disconnected from family, close friends and relatives existed among Indian students at a very young age. Covid-19 pandemic has changed their sense of connection with their own circles when many of them struggle to cope with online classes. Having a poor online class experience is bad for their mental health and it can be seen when Indian students need long hours to spend on online classes and some have changes in their weight. We can see how the lack of infrastructure within India, can affect some school-age children, with much of the population not having access to a computer and internet. As well as social isolation due to the need for a nationwide lockdown.
Therefore, these students need academic and technological support to improve their learning experience and give them an easier time to adapt to online classes, so that students have more time to engage with families, close friends and relatives.
CITATIONS
Chopra, S., Ranjan, P., Singh, V., Kumar, S., Arora, M., Hasan, M. S., Kasiraj, R., Suryansh, Kaur, D., Vikram, N. K., Malhotra, A., Kumari, A., Klanidhi, K. B., & Baitha, U. (2020). Impact of COVID-19 on lifestyle-related behaviours- a cross-sectional audit of responses from nine hundred and ninety-five participants from India. Diabetes & Metabolic Syndrome, 14(6), 2021–2030. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dsx.2020.09.034
EducationWorld. (2020). Impact of online classes on children’s mental health. https://www.educationworld.in/impact-of-online-classes-on-childrens-mental-health/
Mahapatra, A., & Sharma, P. (2020). Education in times of COVID-19 pandemic: Academic stress and its psychosocial impact on children and adolescents in India. International Journal of Social Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020764020961801
Mediawire. (2020). Obesity and depression feed off each other. The Times of India. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/health-news/obesity-and-depression-feed-off-each-other/articleshow/80008986.cms
Mitra, E. (2020, September 07). India didn't prioritize mental health Before COVID-19. now it's paying the price. Retrieved April 15, 2021, from https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/06/india/india-mental-health-dst-intl-hnk/index.html
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