Most high school students experience tumultuous stress whether it’s during college app season, studying for the SATs, or even finding a date to take to prom. Nonetheless, stress is part of any student’s life and an outlet for stress can be very hard to find. Some resort to drugs and alcohol while others stuff themselves with Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream. There are varied methods in relieving one’s stress but experts found that one in particular shows the most therapeutic value: blogging.
Rather than diary-keeping, blogging proved to be the more effective way for adolescents to relieve their stress. The study conducted by Meyran Boniel-Nissim and Azy Barak kept track of 161 high school students (124 girls and 37 boys) who stated they have difficulty making and/or relating to friends.
These students were split into 6 separate groups. Two groups were told to blog online about their social difficulties, with one of the two groups to open their posts to comments. The other two groups also were told to blog online but about anything they wanted, with again one of the two groups to open their posts to comments. The last two groups, as the control groups, were told to write in diaries or do nothing at all.
The group of students, who blogged about their problems and had posts open to comments, exhibited the greatest improvement in mood.
More and more teenagers are growing dependent on the internet, not only for pastime but also for stress relief. The process of channeling one’s stress into words for online strangers seems to be the cure for many teenagers who have trouble seeking therapy or consoling with friends and family. Although venting out one’s problems with another person may seem like the best option in taking the load off of one’s mind, many teenagers find it difficult to speak with others on a vulnerable, intimate level so they turn to blogging.
Many can’t help but to express concern over our generation’s infatuation with social networking and online pleasures. On average, teenagers spend more than 4 hours on the internet and have grown accustomed to depending on it for virtually everything, even for emotional support and stress relief.
As the modern world rapidly changes and advances technologically, will teenagers turn to the internet more than the people around them? Is blogging as therapy a justification for spending more hours online? How will one overcome social difficulties if one refrains from facing them? These questions should be heavily considered in a technologically consumed society.
