“Dear Online Diary, high school is really tough…
Get if off your chest (online) a new study suggests. A study published in the recent Psychological Services reveals teens may benefit from blogging. In fact, blogging about social issues and interaction in online social communities has a positive psychological benefit for teens suffering from low self-esteem or from anxiety related to social interaction.
Just as the diary once served the purpose of allowing individuals to work through stress and anxiety, online blogging can offer the same (and possibly even greater) benefit for teens suffering from low self-esteem. Blogging itself provides an emotional outlet for teens to release emotional stress. However, unlike a private diary, blogging offers even more capability in terms of teens’ ability to connect with others.
It is the ability to receive comments and feedback from others that makes blogging such a powerful tool for teens. The results showed that those teens whose blogs received comments and feedback had more positive results.
The lead author of the study, Meyran Boniel-Nissim, explains, “Teens are online anyway, so blogging enables free expression and easy communication with others.”
While the concern about cyber bullying is valid, the study reported that almost every comment posted to the teen blogs was positive and contained messages of support and encouragement.
The study was conducted with the participation of 161 high school students. The students reported on their feelings about their social relationships. The initial survey revealed that all of the participants had a level of social anxiety. Over the following ten weeks, the teens were split into four groups. Two groups were instructed to blog about any topic, with one group open to comments and the other closed. Two additional groups were instructed to blog only about social problems, again with one blog open to comments and the other closed. Two control groups were instructed not to blog but rather to either do nothing or contain their thoughts to a private diary. The researchers reassessed the participants’ self-esteem and social anxiety immediately after the ten-week blogging experiment and again two months after the blogging experiment ended.
The final results of the study demonstrated a distinct improvement in anxiety and self-esteem for the teen bloggers whose blogs were open to comments as compared to the control group. The researchers believe further study is called for, with more controls for gender, since their ability to control for gender was limited by the number of participants they had available.
In light of cyber-bullying, I think it’s really encouraging to see that blogs can benefit teens by providing an opportunity to connect and improving self-esteem.
“The study reported that almost every comment posted to the teen blogs was positive and contained messages of support and encouragement.” That’s wonderful and also inspiring. It’s great when teens can reap the benefits of interacting online without being exposed to cruel, negative comments. Hopefully this is a sign of a trend toward more positivity online!