Facebook Use May Lead to Psychological Disorders in Teens
Today’s trending topic on Mashable, touched upon the recent study conducted by Larry Rosen, a professor of psychology at California State University which revealed how the obsession with Facebook amongst today’s teens may be leading to the development of psychological disorders such as antisocial behavior, narcissism, character flaws and a several other negative behavioral side effects.
Rosen shared his findings during a presentation titled Poke Me: How Social Networks Can Both Help and Harm Our Kids at the American Psychological Association’s 119th Annual Convention. His quantitative study results combined information taken from 1,000 urban adolescents who participated in a computer-based survey and a 15-minute observation of 300 teens in the act of studying.
Along with the above mentioned effects, the research also revealed the presence of aggressive tendencies, lower school performance and reading retention rates. However, what I also found interesting was how the Facebook era has also help developed “virtual empathy”, a behavior that stimulates positivity and behavior. In the long run, this behavior will help impact their social accountability and virtual currency.
In assessing my personal and professional circles, I believe in general amongst all age groups, cultures and social-economic levels, the obsession with social networks has stimulated the ADD/ADHD in us all. I oftentimes, secretly survey my peers by gauging the length of time it takes for them to redirect their attention from a meeting/project to their mobile devices (i.e. mobile phone, tablet and/or laptop). It never fails, most of the group becomes preoccupied within the first five minutes. I would venture to say that social networks harm us all! What are your thoughts?
