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Does feeling supported or ignored online have stronger impact when teens are already depressed?

📢 Project AWeSoMe celebrates a new publication! 📢

Teenagers spend a lot of time communicating with friends online, but how do those interactions actually affect their wellbeing?


In a preregistered 100-day diary study with 479 adolescents, Loes Janssen together with Amber van der Wal and Ine Beyens found that:

💚 Feeling supported by friends online → higher wellbeing, lower distress

💔 Feeling ignored by friends online → lower wellbeing, higher distress

Adolescents with elevated depressive symptoms showed amplified effects in both directions: more vulnerable to negative experiences, but also gaining more from positive ones.

For parents and clinicians, this highlights the value of open conversations: helping adolescents navigate their digital social world more purposefully, and in doing so, supporting their mental health.


Find the full article here and check out the LinkedIn post!

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This project is funded
by a NWO Spinoza Prize awarded to Patti Valkenburg

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