I kva grad kan eit sosialt medium som blogg, påverke unge jenter si psykiske helse i form av depresjon og angst?

Abstract

Young girls frequently roam and absorb information online in a society where social media, e.g. blogs, have emerged to be highly popular. In this society, bloggers write as they please about their own views and personal experiences with mental disorders, as well as every aspect on mental health in general.

Subsequently, Ivar Frønes writes how the adolescence has come to be digitalised and modern. Jostein Gripsrud writes about the affect media can have on people and how the most important institution of secondary socialization has become mass media.

Additionally, Erving Goffman believes that life is a stage where you play a certain role infront of an audience. As a participator on such a stage it is easy to fall between one's frontstage and backstage personality, and thus act differently thereafter. Goffman's theory could be associated with how the bloggers perform on their platform, as well as how their written words frontstage have an affect on their young female readership. See, frontstage they might be telling the truth, but backstage the truth might not be as it first seemed like.

Furthermore, an emperical analysis on three bloggers, who are some of the most popular in Norway, has been conducted about their experiences with mental health and similar issues. The analysis showed that they do in fact expose raw information on the said topic, and in that way pass it along to a vulnerable audience of youngsters, without being aware of its consequences.