Study: Teens who hold off on dating have better social skills, less depressed

 In contrast to every movie or television show you’ve ever seen about teenagers in high school, a new study has found that teens who don’t date are happier, less depressed, and more adept at dealing with a variety of social situations.

It’s generally believed that dating is a perfectly healthy part of being a teenager. Forming a romantic connection for the first time can help teens’ grow their self-esteem, mature on an emotional level, and develop important social skills for later on in life. While all of that still holds true, researchers from the University of Georgia say that not dating can be just as, if not more, beneficial for teens.

The research team discovered that teens who had not dated during middle or high school displayed good social skills, low levels of depression, and generally fared equal to or better than their classmates who were dating.

“The majority of teens have had some type of romantic experience by 15 to 17 years of age, or middle adolescence,” explains doctoral student and the study’s lead author Brooke Douglas in a release. “This high frequency has led some researchers to suggest that dating during teenage years is a normative behavior. That is, adolescents who have a romantic relationship are therefore considered ‘on time’ in their psychological development.” …

Surprisingly, the study’s authors discovered that non-dating students had either similar, or better, interpersonal skills than their dating classmates. Furthermore, while self-reported positive relationship scores did not differ between either groups, teachers rated the non-dating students significantly higher than their romance-seeking classmates in terms of social and leadership skills.

Regarding depression, teachers also rated non-dating students as less depressed. Additionally, far fewer abstinent students reported feeling depressed or hopeless regularly than students who were known to date.