Unhappy love leads to severe mental disorders

It has long been known that women and men perceive failed relationships with the opposite sex differently, and not only adults but also teenagers tend to have a hard time with unhappy love. Scientists conducted a study in which more than five thousand schoolchildren took part and found out that young girls have a much harder time with failed relationships than young guys.

The author of the new study was Brian Solyer, an associate professor of sociology at a university in New Mexico. The data from a survey of high school students, in which teenagers talked about their understanding of the "ideal relationship", served as the basis. The survey was conducted using cards that depicted different stages of a relationship between a girl and a guy - from a kiss to sex. Young men and women had to arrange the cards in the order in which, in their opinion, the relationship should develop.

A year later, the specialists repeated the survey, but asked the participants to depict the relationships using the same cards that they had over the past year. In both cases, the scientists primarily paid attention to the mental health of the teenagers. As it turned out after the repeated survey, the consequences of unhappy love for young girls were more severe than for young men. Girls who experienced unhappy love were found to have a tendency to mental disorders, in particular the development of severe depression and suicidal tendencies.

According to the author of the study, such a reaction of girls is connected with the fact that romantic relationships are more important for girls, unlike for boys. Love relationships and a girl's self-esteem are closely connected, so an unsuccessful experience in love destroys the emotional well-being of a girl. At the same time, according to the scientist, for young men romantic relationships are not so important, so they endure an unsuccessful experience easier.

In addition, earlier studies have shown that girls who spend a lot of time on social networks have lower self-esteem, especially when it comes to their appearance. Scientists surveyed more than 800 female students, each of whom spent an average of just over an hour on social networks. The girls' usual activity during these minutes was looking at their friends' activity feeds and photos of other users, especially girls. At the same time, scientists found that the more time a girl spent on a social network, the higher the likelihood that she would start comparing herself to other women. Most often, girls paid attention to weight. All survey participants weighed about 67 kg on average, but most of them wanted to reduce this figure by at least 9 kg. According to scientists, the girls wanted to see a figure of 55-58 kg on the scale. The self-esteem of girls who wanted to lose weight and followed various diets suffered especially. But girls who considered their weight normal did not experience psychological discomfort when looking at photos of other girls.