Link Between Social Networking Sites And Depression Among Older Adolescents

Overall, Jelenchicks et al. (2012) study found no significant association between social networking sites like Facebook and depression. In an article by De Choudhury, Gamon, Counts, and Horvitz (2013), they evaluated the language on social media sites like Facebook that people use as well as the emotions people associate to Facebook. Some of the emotions and language De Choudhury et al. (2013) indicated in their study that people might have used in their “post” are feelings of worthlessness, guilt, helplessness, and self-hatred. De Choudhury et al. (2013) findings were “individuals with depression show lowered levels of social activity but showed greater negative emotion, high self-attentional focus, increased relational and medicinal concerns, and heightened expression of religious thoughts.” However, this study did not look at the potential harm of social media and the impact of trauma on an individual. Similarly, Lin and Utz (2015) found in their study that when news or posts appear from a strong tie, a strong and close relationship, that mood is contagious; positive news leads to happiness and negative news leads to sadness. Lin and Utz (2015) noted that there has been no empirical research done on the role of strong ties and the interpretation of one’s emotional response prior. Lin and Utz’s (2015), findings show that the closer the tie and relationship the happier Facebook