Too Much Bad Internet Use Is Linked with Depression

Internet use is growing exponentially.  Just a few days ago, a report came out showing that over 50% of internet users look up health information, which can be a good thing (if they visit sites like mine!). On the other hand, the Internet can be an addiction, and in such cases the choice of use is less good: pornography, gaming, and community/chat sites.  Leeds, UK, scientists have studied a possible relationship between excessive Internet use and depression; their findings are reported in the journal Psychopathology. 

The study employed online questionnaires to identify people defined as ‘Internet addicts’.  Of 1.319 respondents, 18 (1.2%) were identified as falling in the Internet addiction category.  (Addiction was determined using the Internet Addiction Test.)  These participants were compared with a non-addicted group with respect to their scores on the Internet Function Questionnaire, which asks respondents to indicate the relative proportion of time they spend on different Internet activities, and the Beck Depression Inventory.  Across all the participants, there was a close relationship between Internet addiction and depression scores on the Beck Inventory scale.

This study has a number of problems.  Apart from those in the design, the main one is: which comes first, depression or Internet addiction (is the Internet the cause or an effect of depression)?  And is the association a good or a bad thing?  (Maybe depressed people are finding social contacts on the Internet that help their mental problem.)

It’s clear to me that more work is needed before we can imply that heavy Internet usage is responsible for clinical depression. The media has been a bit overenthusiastic in espousing this concept, but it’s by no means proven . . .

Comments

[Mike Looney]

In my opinion it's misuse that's the chief issue here. If people were better able to master the web (managing their time, using RSS readers, more intuitive email systems, etc.) there would be less time spent in fruitless surfing.

I can digest information from literally hundreds of news sources each day in under an hour. Then I'm off to other things.

Here's a photo I've found on the issue: http://melting-world.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/computer_evolution.jpg

Pretty funny.