ABSTRACT
A significant outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the hyper dependency on digital tools. As schools and, at many times, businesses have converted online, the use of digital tools has increased rapidly. Since the situation of COVID-19 fluctuates, national and state-level regulations have caused schools to switch back and forth between traditional and online formats. When deciding between the two, governments should factor in the effects on mental health to prevent increased rates of depression. Our research aims to analyze the correlation between depression rates and the use of digital tools to implement an autoregressive model to predict the best times to switch between online and traditional teaching formats. Based on our findings, the autoregressive model will be implemented to predict when depression rates would peak after school closures. © 2021 IEEE.