Depression takes on differentforms at varying times, depending on the afflicted individual. Following a recent study on high school students, the notion of social depression, as opposed to individualistic depression, has been explored.

Social media is quite prevalent in the lives of all teenagers today. Before the technologicalera of computers and mobile phones, people used to communicate by letter or by face-to-face conversations. However, in this day and age, social media is used even more. In a study done recently that surveyed high school students of all ages, nearly 90% of the responses claimed to prefer to send a text message rather than writing a letter to communicate with someone, whether it be good or bad news. High school students also had a 50-50 opinion between using the phone to text or call someone, which shows that students are dependent on the phone for multiplereasons. If a family member was diagnosed with cancer, half of the results claimed that they would mention it on social media for reasons such as “receiving words of encouragement and help.” The other half of the results stated that they would not utilize social media to mention such important information because it is “not anyone else’s business,” or “it would reach the eyes of people I would not even know.” The range of students to have used social media as an outlet for stress ranges from “never” to “all the time.” Social media in the lives of students, especially those struggling with depression, plays a very big role in society today. “To a certain extent and in appropriate situations,” using social media was said to be an effective way to release stress or depressed emotions.

In contrast to individualistic depression, social depression relates to individuals’ expression of sadness and struggle through social media platforms.

Whether such an outlet is helpful or not continues to be a matter that high school studentsregard with varying perspectives.