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A blog as therapy for teenagers
- But according to a new study, when teenagers detail their woes onto a blog, the therapeutic value is even greater. Blogging, it seems, can be good for you.
- Psychology professors at the University of Haifa, Israel, found the engagement with an online community allowed by the blog format made it more effective in relieving the writer's social distress than a private diary would be.
- To track teenagers' experiences with blogging, the researchers randomly surveyed high school students in Israel and selected 161 of them who exhibited some level of social anxiety or stress.
- In all the groups, the greatest improvement in mood occurred among those bloggers who wrote about their problems and allowed commenters to respond.
- Interestingly, the commenters on the blogs were overwhelmingly supportive. "The only kind of surprise we had was that almost all comments made by readers were very positive and constructive in trying to offer support for distressed bloggers,"
