Teenage Angst Project

The Answer

After analyzing data and research, and conducting some of my own research, it is apparent that social networking and angst are related. Social networking sites open a plethora of possibilities for personal information to be wrongfully used to harm others. A false sense of Narcissism, combined with misinterpretation of typed words and “emoticons,” can lead to negative judgment from peers or even strangers. The prevalence of cyber-bullying and other forms of harassment further shows the window of opportunity for anxiety to develop in users. The amount of teens using social networking sites, as well as the fact the over 50% of Tumblr users use the word anxiety in their blogs, shows that the relationship is strong and may continue to grow.  

Interview with Angela

• Me: Hey Angela! I appreciate you taking the time to write to me about the blog. It's for my English project lol.
• Angela: NP [No Problem]. Whatsup?
• Me: From reading through your blog a bit, I can see you that you post about having anxious feelings a lot. Does posting on the internet help you with these feelings or exacerbate them further?
• Angela: It depends... When i first made a Tumblr, it was only to express my feelings when I had no one else to go to. But it has backfired on me a few times.
• Me: How so?
• Angela: I've just received many negative comments from people in school, and a lot of ridicule about "bitching to the internet."
• Me: Wow. That seems kind of harsh. How did that make you feel?
• Angela: Horrible. It made me regret expressing myself in the first place. It made me want to suppress all my feelings inside and overall, gave me more anxiety than I had in the first place. I felt like people were just judging me for being who I am. I almost deleted my blog because of it.
• Me: I'm sorry to hear that. I hope that you try not to let the negative judgement affect you. Being yourself is the best form of self-expression there is. Also, how do you feel about my blog?
• Angela: Thanks. I like your blog because it is slightly informative. I don't really understand what a hypothesis test is, but it is interesting to know that more than half of Tumblr users post about anxiety.
• Me: Thanks for your time Angela. I hope things go well for you and if you ever need someone to talk to, feel free to contact me through this blog.
• Angela: Thanks!

Cyber-Bullying

Teenagers using the internet to harass or insult their peers has become quite common recently. 

Cyber-Bullying can be defined by five characteristics:

1. aggressive behavior or intentional “harm doing”
2. which is carried out “repeatedly and over time”
3. in an interpersonal relationship characterized by an imbalance of power
4. the victim does not provoke bullying behavior by using verbal or physical aggression
5. bullying occurs in familiar social groups

Direct Bullying

Direct Cyber-Bullying includes the following:

• Damage to property (sending someone a virus through the internet)
• Damage to reputation verbally (insulting or threatening someone on the internet)
• Damage to reputation non-verbally (sending obscene pictures)
• Excluding one from a group (Online group in this case)

Indirect Bullying

Direct Cyber-Bullying includes the following:

• Revealing someone’s personal information
• Deceiving someone by pretending to be someone else

Cyber-Bullying is prevalent and plays a major role in social networking. 

Source: http://nms.sagepub.com/content/11/8/1349.full.pdf+html

Facts and Figures

• 93% of teens go online and 63% go online daily
• 65% of teens use social networking sites
• 61% of teens send messages to friends via social networking sites
• 42% of teens send messages to friends via social networking sites daily
• 86% of girls have their profile online as opposed to 69% of boys
• 83% of social network users have added comments to a friend’s picture
• 77% post messages to friend’s page or wall
• 66% post comments on a friends blog
• 54% send bulletins or group messages to all their friends

This vast amount of open information can lead to cyber-bullying. 

Risks of Social Networking

“Social networking is time-wasting and socially isolating, and at worst it allows pedophiles to groom children in their bedroom, or sees teenagers lured into suicide pacts while parents think they are doing their homework.”

When one is creating a profile, they become focused on themselves. They are the central theme of this profile, and this creates a strong sense of Narcissism.

Due to limited internet literacy and poorly designed site settings, people are often misunderstood and ridiculed when they try to express emotion through writing on these sites.

Source: http://nms.sagepub.com/content/10/3/393.full.pdf+html

Privacy and Social Networking

The fact that users of any social networking site share personal information on the internet plays a huge role in determining how angst and other mental problems arise in users of these sites. The popularity of social networking sites also affects the relationship developmental process, since people can simply look at the information you provide on the site rather than actually talking to the person.

“Commercial social networking sites thrive “on a sense of immediacy and community. The spirit is independent, even rebellious.” Teenagers are learning how to use social networks by interacting with their friends, rather than learning these behaviors from their parents or teachers. “[Public conventions] generate our manners and morals — our shared assumptions — and allow communications.” Often parents have no clue about the information teens are publicly revealing. Currently, a new type of communication behavior is emerging amongst teenagers as they explore their identities, experiment with behavioral norms, date, and build friendships.”

This lack of privacy has lead to many problems, such as children being exposed to pedophiles and teenagers being raped by people they meet online.

Source: http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1394/1312

Hypothesis Test

For this test, the following conditions have been met:

• The sample of 50 posts is a simple random sample. The posts were taken from randomly selected blogs.
• The blogs were searched for the word “anxiety” or any form of it (such as anxious). If no instance of the word was found, a random post from the blog was taken.
• The sample is less than 10% of the population. (There are over 13 billion posts and 35 million blogs on Tumblr).
• The population of blogs on Tumblr has a normal distribution (bell curve).
• After analyzing the 50 blogs, it was found that 60% contain some form of the word “anxiety”.

Key Terms

• Null Hypothesis - The hypothesis that states the observations occur by chance
• Alternative Hypothesis - The hypothesis that states observation are influenced by some non-random cause.
• P-value - The probability of obtaining a sample as extreme as the one that is observed.
• Significance Level - If the p-value is lower than the significance level, the null hypothesis is rejected.
• Standard Deviation - A quantitative value of how each individual observation varies.
• Test Statistic - A numerical summary of the data.

A 1-proportion Z test will be conducted to see if the null hypothesis can be rejected.

Null Hypothesis - 50% of Tumblr users have the word anxiety in their blogs.

Alternative Hypothesis - More than 50% of Tumblr users have the word in their blogs.

The significance level is .10.

To obtain the p-value, the standard deviation must be calculated using the following formula; sqrt(P*(1-p)/n) where P is the hypothesized value of the proportion, which is 50%, and p is the observed value, which is 60%. n represents the sample size which is 50. The standard deviation of this sample is .07.

Next, the test statistic is calculated using the formula (p-P)/standard deviation. It is 1.41. Since the population of posts is normally distributed, the p-value can be obtained by comparing the test statistic to a normal distribution chart.

The p-value is .07, which is less than .10. Therefore, we can reject the null hypothesis, proving that more than 50% of Tumblr users have blogs containing at least one instance of the word anxiety.

I feel like I’ve been so emotionally messy and anxious that I’m just going to break down at a bad time.

(Source: lifetrichedme)

Anxiety.

This is the most crippling thing I have ever delt with. It often challenges my work ethic and also personal relationships. Panic attacks are the most awful things ive ever delt with. Ive already have tried several medications, the paxil and ativan generally help, the cymbalta was terrible. Im hoping that I start figuring the emotional side of it to manage and possible depleat the attacks.

It sucks.

(Source: kotovsyndr0me)

Buspirone is a medication prescribed in generalized anxiety disorder and in resistant depression drugs.

(Source: njmanura)