A new study has claimed that teenagers who spend more time using Internet are prone to a higher risk of depression. The psychologists have said that moderate or serious depressive tendencies can be developed in those students who have developed regular internet habits and have replaced their social interactions and real life experiences with on line chats and social networking sites.

This study has therefore showed a direct association of teenagers using a lot of internet with the high risk of depression amongst them. For this study, a test was conducted on about 1,000 teenagers living in China, to see the impact of internet usage on them.

Besides depression, these kids are also likely to suffer from poor physical health, relationship troubles, hostile behaviors, psychological disorders and alcohol abuse due to high use of Internet in their daily routines.

Study Authors Dr. Lawrence T. Lam of the School of Medicine in Sydney and Zi-Wen Peng of the Ministry of Education in Guangzhou, China said, "Young people who are initially free of mental health problems but use the Internet pathologically could develop depression as a consequence".

The internet usage has especially increased due to the high popularity of social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others.