The Internet as a Social Resource for Taiwanese Teenagers: A Study of the Relationship Between Depressive Mood and Internet-Mediated Communication.

This article presents a large-scale preliminary investigation that explored the relationship between Taiwanese teenagers' depressive mood and their Internet-mediated communication. A total of 6,341 teenagers completed a questionnaire that examined this relationship. Chi-square and correlation analysis showed that, depending on their level of depressive mood, respondents used the Internet especially for establishing new relationships, finding people who care for them, and expressing feelings they could not express otherwise. These results shed new light on earlier research that focused exclusively on U.S. Internet users (Kraut et al., 1998, 2002) and suggest that the role which the Internet plays for people with depressive mood depends for an important part on the way this disorder is perceived and dealt with in a particular cultural context. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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