Slashdot Mirror
Heavy Internet Use Linked To Depression
An anonymous reader writes "People who spend a lot of time surfing the internet are more likely to show signs of depression, British scientists said on Wednesday. These 'internet addicts' spent proportionately more time browsing sexually gratifying websites, online gaming sites and online communities, Morrison said. They also had a higher incidence of moderate to severe depression than normal users."
Seconded. Could it be that perhaps people are depressed by not getting the attention they desire and thus go to the internet for it? The study is a failure if it finds both ends of the argument plausible and no concrete evidence for either.
Rather meaningless really. Of the 1319 responses to an online questionaire 1.2% (yes, thats a whole 16 people) were deemed to be "addicts". "Many" of those were deemed to be depressed. Whats that a whole 10 people?
Noone ever answers these things less than 100% honestly, do they?
Smells more like they asked their questions, stated the conclusions they were hoping to prove but failed utterly at having the data to back them up.
But it is not clear whether the internet causes depression or whether depressed people are drawn to it.
Exactly. And an earlier study showed a correlation between television watching and depression. Worth repeating: correlation is not always causation.
In this case, I could easily see the correlation as: depressed people are too depressed to do anything requiring activity, so they tend to sit around and watch television or surf the web.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
All they are saying is that they noted Correlation, not implying causation.
Yet the summary is written as such. Such a shock for a /. editor not to read something before it's put on the front page.
No, it doesn't. The summary says "more likely"; that is, as internet use increases, the probability of depression increases. That is the definition of correlation. Implying causation would be using a word like "cause". (I know, tricky concept) Which the summary doesn't.