If you write a blog post and nobody is around to read it, did it make a sound? New studies suggest the very act of blogging itself produces psychological and physiological benefits.

   School psychologist David Schlenoff explained that teens either let off steam a little at a time, or in one explosive release. Blogging helps teens work off stress in their volatile years and prevent breakdowns.

    “I think all teenagers need some form of an outlet for the things we find difficult to say out loud,” said junior Lena McBean. Blogging, she said, fulfills that need.

   Research from the American Psychological Association suggests that blogging has more therapeutic benefits than tradition diary-writing, because of community interaction. Everyone is forever alone together.

   When others comment on your blog posts, Schlenoff said, it validates your existence and opinions. It lessens social distress from feeling alone in one’s angst, but is by no means the best solution. A blogger’s self-confidence can be devastated by unclear privacy settings, flaming, trolling and cyber-bullying.

   “When a distressed teen blogs, he or she is sharing innermost feelings with an anonymous world—thereby leaving his or herself vulnerable to being criticized, bullied, etc,” Schlenoff said.

   It gets worse.  Teens’ increased reliance on the online community for reassurance and stability takes its toll on society and on the brain. Is blogging a healthy outlet that should be encouraged for teens, or is it constructing what CNN worries is a “society of detached voyeurs”?

   “The human brain seems to be in the process of adapting to this new, less personal, electronic means of social interaction,” Schlenoff said.

   He cited a study that found that the temporal lobes—the part of the brain in young people that is linked to emotions, empathy, decision-making and the urge to blog—show diminished function as internet usage intensifies. This leads to the “empathy deficit” that psychologists and President Obama have bemoaned.

   Senior Lucy Wang, who blogs via Tumblr and WordPress about notable events in her life, art inspiration, music, and “emotional crap”, said blogging helps teens relieve emotional stress most “when you feel like you can't tell anyone else directly what is going on.”

   “I don’t really want to burden people with my problems,” she said. “So I just write about them.”

   But if teens become so invested that blogging begins replacing relationships with family and friends, and school and work performance begin to falter—then, Schlenoff said, it’s time to take a step back.