O12: The Role of New Communicative Media in Creating Anxiety in Teenagers

Nowadays, new informational and communicative media, and the rate of their use by individuals have caused deep metamorphoses in the material and non-material dimensions of human lives, and individuals’ mental regulation. The use of these media, especially the Internet and virtual social networks, among Iranian teenagers has unnoticeably increased, and providing numerous facilities and options makes them get familiar with new stimuli and a variety of behaviors; and encountering a real world, such a virtual space causes a rampancy of anxiety disorders for teenagers who are in the stage of formulating and developing identity and consistently discovering values and internalizing them in the virtual world. Accordingly, these media overuse has damaged their family and social lives, and leads into ignoring their close and warm interaction with family members, social life, hobbies and entertainments and other social activities in the real setting. Research has shown that new communicative technologies have changed individuals’ attitudes toward themselves, others and the world; therefore, their identities have changed. Using the social media, usually through getting negative feedbacks from peers in the virtual setting, on-line watching stressful events happening in the others’ lives, computer games, and tolerating the nervous pressures caused by long-hour activities with social networks and the like, create anxiety impulses in individuals. Therefore, the correct appreciation and understanding of the relationship between the new communicative media usage and the emergence of anxiety and its consequences can be fruitful for the clinical professionals and educational psychologists in achieving new information in treating anxiety.