As a psychologist at a Norwegian high school in Oslo, Lars Halse Kneppe has spent the entire pandemic visiting schools and spending time among young people. The world was changing from week to week, and no one knew how long it would last. There has been much written about the youth during the pandemic, but Kneppe has met these young people who are the cause of scary statistics and worrying numbers. Behind the numbers are real humans with their own stories who can complement the impression we get from graphs or statistics.

In this book Kneppe shares the stories of the youths, about how they’ve been coping during the pandemic, but also after the world opened back up. To understand what the youth has been through, and in order to meet them halfway in the aftermath, it’s more important to listen to their stories rather than reducing them to numbers as part of a statistic. This is an exploration of time and an insight into the day-to-day lives of the teenagers throughout the pandemic; how were they feeling and how were they doing, and how have their experiences affected the teenagers many refer to as the corona generation?