4 Troubled Teens Blog

About one-third of the teenagers who spend time online say they have been victims of cyberbullying, according to a new study. However, two-thirds of the teens reported that most bullying occurs off-line. Girls and those who use social networking websites like MySpace and Facebook were more likely to be bullied than other online users. The study, by the Pew Institute and the American Life Project, involved phone interviews with 866 children ages 12 to 17 years.

Learn more about online bullying and find help for parents of troubled teens at ByParents-ForParents.com.

Labels: bullying, social_networking, online_safety

Posted By: Aspen Education Group 0 Comments

Robert Gater's daughter Jodie committed suicide at the young age of 16. The bodies of her and her friend Stephanie Gestier were found in the Dandenong Rages of Australia this past Sunday. Gater says his daughter spent a lot of time online, and even posted a suicide message on MySpace. Adolescent psychologists warn parents to keep their kids from getting lost online.

"Don't let them disappear behind this emotional firewall called MSN,' Dr. [Michael] Carr-Gregg said. 'There are many factors that lead to suicide but parents should make sure they know what their kids are doing online.'"

The danger with kids spending a lot of time online is that troubled kids are able to find each other, connect, and can often feed off of each others negative and/or destructive emotions. Read more at TheAge.com.au.

Labels: suicide, myspace, online_safety

Posted By: Aspen Education Group 0 Comments

Teenagers who use the Internet too much are more likely to be depressed, especially if they surf the Net as entertainment, according to a new study from China.

Researchers from the Chinese Education Ministry studied the Internet habits of 1401 teenagers, and found that about 6 percent were using the Internet in "pathological" ways. When the researchers followed up nine months later, the teens addicted to the web were one and a half times more likely to feel or develop depression.

"The results suggest that young people who are initially free of mental health problems, but use the Internet pathologically could develop depression as a consequence," the authors wrote in a report published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

The teens in this study most likely to be addicted to the Internet were more likely to use it for entertainment rather than for studying or gathering information.
 

Labels: mental_health, internet, depresion, online_safety

Posted By: Jane St. Clair 1 Comment