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Facebook Depression- Social Networking Site Use and Depression in Older Adolescents
Journal of Adolescent Health, 07/16/2012
Jelenchick LA et al. – The authors did not find evidence supporting a relationship between social networking site (SNS) use and clinical depression. Counseling patients or parents regarding the risk of “Facebook Depression” may be premature.
Methods- Older adolescent university students completed an online survey containing the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 depression screen (PHQ) and a weeklong ESM data collection period to assess SNS use.
- Participants (N = 190) included in the study were 58% female and 91% Caucasian.
- The mean age was 18.9 years (standard deviation = .8). Most used SNSs for either <30 minutes (n = 100, 53%) or between 30 minutes and 2 hours (n = 74, 39%); a minority of participants reported daily use of SNS >2 hours (n = 16, 8%).
- The mean PHQ score was 5.4 (standard deviation = 4.2). No associations were seen between SNS use and either any depression (p = .519) or moderate to severe depression (p = .470).
