Masks… In 2025?

It’s 2025. Why are people still wearing masks?

For the record, I wore masks anytime I was in public during the pandemic. 2020, 2021, 2022…if you met me in public during one of these years, I probably had a mask on.

I didn’t like doing it. I did it out of necessity. Sometimes you have to do certain things even if you don’t like them. Between maintaining public health and doing stuff I liked, the benefit from maintaining public health far outweighed the benefit from doing stuff I liked.

But the pandemic ended two years ago.

It isn’t necessary to wear masks anymore. You can rest easy. Breathe easy, too.

And yet, interestingly, there are some people who still wear them.

I can’t help but wonder: why?

Let’s get the obvious one out of the way: health concerns. Maybe these people have weak immune systems. That mask is their first line of defense. This one I can understand. When you think of a mask, you think of safety. Masks protect you from infection and protect others from contracting any infectious disease you might have…that could be spread from your mouth. Take this part with a grain of salt, I’m not a doctor. Point is, if you’re wearing one in public for health reasons, that makes complete sense to me. Isn’t that what they’re made for?

But I’ve been around many cases where the people wearing them clearly weren’t ill. They weren’t coughing, sneezing, or fatigued. They were completely healthy.

So…why?

I met a first year student this semester. Every day I’ve seen her in class, she’s worn a mask. One day, she was studying with a friend from that class. That friend asked if I could help them. So I did, but I also used that time as an opportunity to ask why she wore a mask. So I asked her, and she completely blanked. I can’t recall how exactly the exchange went (I was sleep-deprived at the time), but I think she may have said “I don’t know.” Her friend had to explain it for her. “It’s just normal.”

And that added a new answer to this question.

I suppose when you spend upwards of two years of having to wear a mask, it becomes routine to the point that even you’re not required to wear one, it feels weird to not wear one. It’s become normal to you.

My initial reaction to this explanation was to think of the financial cost. If you wear a mask every single day, that money has to add up, right? Then I did a quick Google search and found that you can get a pack of 25 for six dollars at Walmart. If you do the math, that’s fifteen boxes a year, which totals in at about 90 dollars a year. Which, as broke as college students may be, I think even that is pretty affordable.

My mom always taught me to save as much money as possible. The moment you stop needing to buy something, you stop buying it. Maybe that isn’t this student’s mentality. But to be honest, I wouldn’t know what her mentality is. Chances are, it could be that her parents told her to wear them during COVID-19, and they just never thought to stop buying them. I wonder what their monthly budget looks like.

This has been the case since the pandemic ended. That was in the middle of 2023. I was still in high school at that time (can’t believe I’m already in my second year of college…), and I saw plenty of my classmates still wearing masks despite it being unnecessary. This brings me to a third theory.

Insecurities.

Again, just a theory. But here’s what I figure: some people don’t have the greatest self-image. They don’t like the way they look. In particular, they don’t like the way their face looks. But in a pre-COVID world, they’re unaware of any practical ways to hide it. So, the moment the pandemic hits, and they’re told they MUST wear some sort of face covering, it’s as though the most practical answer was just…given to them. “I can hide my face…and it’d be a way to maintain public health? Sign me up!” may have been their thought process. The keyword there is “may.”

Now, personally, I don’t have any self-image issues. I like the way I look. But if I did, I’d want to work on them, so I don’t feel dependent upon an accessory to ignore them. I’m no psychologist, but doesn’t this count as a form of enabling?

People tend to run away from their issues. These people use masks (their means) to avoid their issues (their end).

My understanding is that you shouldn’t run away from your issues, you need to address them and figure out how to overcome them. 

But not everyone has the time to do that. So that’s another layer.

Some people’s entire lives revolve around their work or education. They don’t have time to actualize themselves. Their goal is to get through the work or school day, go home, eat dinner, and go to sleep. That’s their routine. They don’t have time to change it. But when they’re forced to, they will; so, wearing a mask has become part of their routine. No one’s forcing them to take it off, so why should they?

I think the reason I notice it is because of how much I rely upon facial expressions to read people. If you’ve ever taken a COMS class, you would know how important facial expressions are when it comes to communication. Masks cut my ability to read people’s faces in half. All I can do is read their eyes and eyebrows. Sure, “the eyes are the window to the soul,” but you try guessing someone’s expression when you can only see half of it.

So these are all my theories for why people still wear masks in a post-COVID world. This is all based on pure observation. I have not done any research (save for that article in the beginning), so take all of this with a grain of salt.

I am not saying it isn’t right to wear a mask. They’re allowed to wear that mask whether it’s necessary or not. I just find it interesting that they’re wearing it despite it being unnecessary. One of the main factors that drives us to do things is necessity. Another is desire. Do they want to do it? Does it give them comfort? Admittedly, I wouldn’t need to be asking these questions on a blog post if I just…went ahead and asked these people these things. It is partially my fault.

But would they be willing to answer these questions in the first place?

One form of these insecurities is social awkwardness—if a person doesn’t like the way they look, they probably don’t like who they are, and as a result, will typically try to avoid social interaction. Masks also enable this behavior. I don’t blame them. I behaved quite similarly in the height of the pandemic. That’s why I believe I can speak on this topic: I’ve struggled with socializing my whole life.

That’s a story for a different time, though. I could go on and on about social awkwardness.

Just think about it. Why wear a mask if it isn’t absolutely necessary?