Impact of technologies on young men's mental health

The Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre has published its first national survey, Game on: exploring the impact of technologies on young men's mental health and wellbeing.  Some troubling results from the survey of 14 young men aged 16-25 indicate the failure of our mental health system to address the needs of this group:

• Nearly one in five felt that life is hardly worth living
• Nearly one in ten had thought about taking their own life
• 42% had experienced psychological distress

The report suggests that using technologies which match current online behaviour could offer hope for improving the wellbeing of this group.  The young men who reported moderate to very high levels of psychological distress were more likely to talk about problems on the Internet, or to use the Internet to find information about their issues.