Several factors come into play

Many teenagers and young adults do find it difficult to interact. It can sometimes be because of the environment at home and because the teenagers are not able to have very meaningful interactions with their parents and are not able to go out very often, either, because of strict parents.

Today the awkwardness comes from a lot of other perspectives as well. My children tell me that if you have very few friends, people begin to wonder what’s wrong. A lot of other factors come into play as well – the internet is to blame for sure, as their presence in the virtual world is so much that they fail to distinguish between the real and the virtual. This does affect mental health to an extent. Families, too, can be quite restrictive. When children are unable to spend time outside the house because of parental restrictions, when they do meet their friends or peers they don’t mingle much because they think they are not as cool as the others and feel they will not be accepted. From Ms Ruby Sahay

Highschool teacher in a school in Sharjah