New research recently published suggests that teens who are lonely communicate more online than teens who aren’t so lonely.
Perhaps this should be filed in the “No duh” section of research findings about online behavior, but it actually answers a long-standing question — Does the Internet make people more lonely, or do lonely people turn to the Internet for solace?
The answer, from this study anyway, appears to be the latter — lonely people communicate online significantly more than non-lonely people do.
The Australian researchers (Bonetti et al., 2010) arrived at this finding by gathering survey data from 626 children and teens (10 to 16 years old). The surveys assessed subjects’ frequency of communication online, as well as loneliness (via an abbreviated UCLA loneliness scale) and social anxiety (via an abbreviated Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents).
What did the researchers find?
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If you check out Yahoo Answers you also see many crying out for help with serious disorders. They can’t turn to parents because of fear of being ridiculed, not believed or because the parents ARE the problem. They fear school counselors because this too will go back to their families. Therapists will not see under aged patients without parents, nor can they afford services. Where else are they to turn? They are looking for peer support and understanding or a rational adult to guide them. Many ask for doctors to answer them, although few paid professionals can be bothered with such things. Fortunately there are Med students, psych RNs, and some counselors that keep watch and try to help. What do you say to those threatening suicide. Just hide and ignore them? Maybe that’s why they do it online in the first place on sites where they are free to express such things. Sure, some may be attention getters and fakes, but if one life is saved because someone takes the time to help it’s worth it.
Just as with any other medium, there are positives and negatives involved with mainly using the internet as a means for social interaction. You pointed out the many positives. On the other hand, teens and young adults have to be particularly shrewd about who they may be dealing with online. There is a new movie, Trust, coming out from David Schwimer (did I spell his name correctly?) about a girl who gets taken advantage on through an online ‘boyfriend’ who turns out to be a 40 something male.
I’m in my early 20′s and have pretty bad social anxiety and am quite introverted. I belong to several online communities that I feel act as a crutch for my lack of social interaction. In high school I would rarely talk to anyone in real life, most of my friends were online-only.
I’m a bit better now. I’m still working on forcing myself out of this shell, becoming less self-conscious, it’s tough. I really think my high school years of social isolation, aided by the online social fix, made my social anxiety much worse.
It’s as if I have/had arachnophobia, and the internet was/is a spiderless-bubble, but life cannot be lived in the bubble. Eventually, I’ll see a spider, and the more I avoid them the more terrifying they’ll be. I should’ve never entered the bubble, I should’ve instead worked on the underlying issues.
I am a high school student. Your research is very interesting because Im almost always online in chat room and I love to chatting insted of talking to my friends in phone. However, I have frieds at school to hang out and I do not think I am lonely or dipressed. I am impressed your information can I ask more with an E-mail?
I am a high school student, i cant communicate with girls. for that matter i havnt any girl fraind. I want to have one girl fraind now i think my girl fraind is heire
I am a high school student, I don’t have many friends at school and I often feel depressed and lonely alot. Do you know any online chat websites?:(
I am the dad of a lonely 19 year old teen. He needs friends but has trouble making friends because he is so introverted. I want to help him but I don’t know what to do for him. Somebody help me please. What do I need to do to get him some friends that he desperately needs? It breaks my heart to see him so lonely.