Abstract
Online social participation. This paper analyzes the effect of community and online participation on psychological distress (stress and depression) in a sample of 350 adult Internet users. Analyses show that both community and online participation have a similar positive influence on social self-esteem, which at the same time has a negative influence on levels of stress and depression. Community and online participation are not statistically related. These results were obtained after controlling for sociodemographic (gender, age, number of inhabitants and length of time in the community) and the use of Internet (years of use of Internet and frequency of use) variables. According to our data, online participation could have the same beneficial consequences as its community counterpart, which offers a wide range of possibilities for prevention and intervention.
