HealthDay (1/13, Preidt) reports, “Blogging appears to help teens deal with social problems,” according to a study published online Jan. 4 in the journal Psychological Services. Among “161 Israeli high school students, 124 girls and 37 boys, average age 15, who had some level of social anxiety or distress,” teens who blogged “showed significant improvements in self-esteem, social anxiety, emotional distress and the number of positive social behaviors, compared to the teens who wrote in a private diary or did nothing. The greatest improvements were seen in teens who were told to write about their social problems and whose blogs were open to comments,” the study found.
