Teens Who Spend Moderate Time Online Cope Better With Psychological Stress Than Others, Study Reveals

Teens could spend their whole day doing activities that drain their energy, which sometimes gives them psychological stress. But they also develop different coping strategies to destress, such as spending time online.

A new study, titled "Adolescents' Online Coping: When Less Is More but None Is Worse" published in Clinical Psychological Science, revealed that teens ages 13-17 in low socioeconomic settings who spend moderate time online cope better with stress compared to those who spend several hours online and those who completely neglect it.

As reported by the Association for Psychological Science (APS), study main author Kathryn Modecki collaborated with researchers from Griffith University's Menzies Health Institute and School of Applied Psychology to conduct the study.

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Teens Who Spend Moderate Time Online Cope Better With Psychological Stress Than Others, Study Reveals

Gathering Data on How Stressed Teens Cope

Modecki said that adolescents make use of technology to their advantage. Unlike most people who think that technology is bad and detrimental to adolescents, Modecki's team learned that some adolescents do not support this generalized statement.

The team provided iPhones to over 200 adolescents living in low socioeconomic settings to get firsthand data from teens and their relationship to technology. The participants were told to report the hours they used their phones, as well as the stressors, and their emotions at least five times a day for a week while using the iPhones as they would have used their own smartphones.

They identified those who used the smartphones excessively, moderately, and those who do not use them at all. Then, they compared the participants' emotional states with how they cope with psychological states.

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Adolescents Moderately Engaging Online Cope Better to Stress

According to RepublicWorld.com, the results of the study suggest that teenagers who use technology in moderate hours after encountering a stressful event could cope better and reported lower times when they feel down or stressed out compared to those who chose not to engage online and those who used it as a coping mechanism.

Modecki said that they have found the "just-right Goldilocks" effect in those who used technology moderately. She added that when teenagers tend to show greater short-term stress reduction when they have emotional support in the presence of daily stresses.

Researchers noted that the online environment has become a tool for adolescents to obtain knowledge and support for whatever is bothering them. This benefited them significantly, especially those in low-income settings since it gave them the opportunity to get that knowledge and assistance.

Teens Use Social Media to Cope Psychological Stress During Lockdowns

A separate study, titled "How Adolescents Use Social Media to Cope with Feelings of Loneliness and Anxiety During COVID-19 Lockdown" published in Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. Publishers, suggests that teenagers have greatly depended on technology during the pandemic as it helped them to connect with peers, and experience less stress from the prolonged period of social isolation due to lockdowns.

Participants of the study who felt lonely during lockdowns reported using social media to cope with the lacking social contact, although this does not equate to feelings of happiness. Nonetheless, the study concluded that social media use has become a constructive coping strategy for teens to deal with anxiety during the pandemic.