How to avoid feeling depressed on Facebook
That's one of the findings from a review of all the research on the links between social networking and depression by David Baker and Dr Guillermo Perez Algorta from Lancaster University. They examined studies from 14 countries with 35,000 participants aged between 15 and 88. There are among 1.8 billion people on online social networking sites worldwide, with Facebook alone having more than 1 billion active users. Concerns over the effect on mental health led the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2011 to define "Facebook depression" as a "depression that develops when preteens and teens spend a great deal of time on social media sites, such as Facebook, and then begin to exhibit classic symptoms of depression." The Lancaster University review of existing research found that the relationship between online social networking and depression may be very complex and associated with factors like age and gender. In cases where there is a significant associa...