Explain how Durkheim’s study of suicide can help us understand why suicidal ideation and attempts have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic for various populations?

Introduction to Sociology
Fall 2021
Dr. Luis Fleischman
Please answer two (2) of the following four (4) questions.
Question 1 As stay-at-home orders and social distancing dragged from weeks to months, the social consequences of COVID-19 began to have severe impacts beyond the actual illness from the virus.
Stay-at-home restrictions have cut off many people from their daily routines, sources of income, and social networks, contributing to a wide variety of psychological, social, and physical responses including anxiety, depression, loneliness and isolation, substance abuse, chronic stress, uncertainty about the future, as well as fears of contracting the disease. Suicide rates had been on the rise in the United States prior to the pandemic, but the conditions of 2020 seemed to have further increased suicidal ideation across several countries
Reports of mental health issues, self-harm, and suicidal ideation have increased among the population in general. However, they are disproportionately affecting young adults, women, the Black and Latinx populations, essential workers, unpaid caregivers, and those with preexisting conditions. The stresses of economic and employment insecurity, strained or overburdened family relationships, lack of access to adequate medical care, workplace distress, exposure to risks of contracting COVID-19, and ongoing struggles with mental health have exacerbated many of the social inequalities already present in the United States. Furthermore, closures of schools and the move to virtual and remote learning have negatively impacted the physical and mental health of many students.
Questions:
a) Explain how Durkheim’s study of suicide can help us understand why suicidal ideation and attempts have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic for various populations?
b) Please refer also to Durkheim’s concept of anomie in this context.
c) Why might some people (members of minority populations, students, etc.) suffer more than others?
Question 2)
Before Jan. 6, 2021 , 18-year-old Bruno Cua, was best known in his small town of Milton, Ga., as a great builder of treehouses. These were big, elaborate creations with ladders and trapdoors and framed-out windows. They were so impressive, neighbors paid Cua to build them for their kids.
Bruno Cua’s lawyers said their client “is an impressionable 18-year-old kid who was in the middle of finishing his online coursework to graduate from high school when he was arrested.”
They paint a portrait of a young man swept up by events. “In many ways, he is less of an ‘adult’ than many teenagers,” the motion said. “He has never lived away from his parents. He has lived his entire life in the area immediately surrounding Atlanta.”
. In a criminal complaint, prosecutors point to Cua’s social media posts in the run-up and aftermath to Jan. 6 to suggest that he was someone who was genuinely motivated.
Both prosecution and defense agree that he was radicalized by what he read online, and the decision to embrace the falsehoods he discovered in chatrooms and social media changed the course of his life. . More than 250 people (Links to an external site.) have been charged so far with breaching the Capitol and most of them, to varying degrees, were motivated to storm the building by the falsehoods they had been reading online and in social media for months.
Since the events in January, Cua has completed three online courses: College Algebra, Intro to Government and Intro to Marketing, his lawyers said. He is three classes away from a high school diploma
Questions:
a) describe how different agents of socialization influenced Mr. Cue.
b) What can you say about the impact of social media as an agent of socialization?
c) Can social media be stronger than parental or family socialization? d) do you think conformity may have played a role here? If yes, please explain.

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