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Using Multiple Forms of Media At Once Correlates With Depression, Anxiety
pigrabbitbear writes "A new study (abstract) from Michigan State University shows that media multitasking exhibits a strong correlation with social anxiety and depression. Importantly, the direction of causality remains to be seen: Does multi-tasking make us more anxious and depressed? Or, as the study's leader, Mark W. Becker, an assistant professor of psychology, put it in an email, 'are depressed and anxious [people] turning toward media multitasking as a form of distraction?' The results of this study aren't conclusive in that regard, he says. But they're an important step. 'While that question will not be easy to answer, it is worth pursing because the practical implications of the findings depend on the causal direction,' he said."
There was this old study on how using multiple tabs while browsing means you're depressed. It basically said girls are more normal in this regard because they just have their Facebook page open and AT MOST browse just one other website for reading. At the same time nerds were thought depressed because they couldn't keep themselves on one page but kept switching to many different pages, on tabs. Might have some truth to reality, especially if looking at the geeks I know.
I strongly believe that the cause-effect relationship is that depressed/anxious people are using more social media. Why? It's an attempt to find something or someone worthwhile to alleviate the feelings of boredom and/or loneliness.
Happy confident people will find some task or project or following and happily stick to it for a while. Depressed, lonely, scatterbrained people will turn to things like social media to try to find whatever it is that they don't know they're looking for.
This is my belief..... of course, I might not know what I'm talking about.
IANAPsychologist, but intuitively I suspect that there's some feedback going on. A person is unhappy or lonely, so he seeks stimulus from multiple media inputs to try to fill the emptiness. It's gratifying for a while, but he quickly reaches diminishing returns and the endorphin rush peters out. Then he feels more depressed and lonely, so he seeks even more stimulus, and so on.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
... what does this mean for "Multi-Media"... man's that's depressing.
So, with the big flashing red caveat that this is entirely anecdotal and drawn from personal experience, I recall 'spamming' my senses with as many inputs as possible (lying in bed simultaneously listening to music, a film on, reading a book, eating seriously high fat/salt/sugar foodstuffs, etc.) quite a lot while I was in the deeper throes of reasonably severe depression. Retrospectively it seems like an attempt to blot out as much of reality as I could, and drown out the sound of my own thoughts.
Funny things, brains.
fortune -o
Oh, darn. I was doing other things and I didn't post in time.
Missing out on a FP is making me depressed.
It's really nice to see an article on correlation without invalid conclusions of causation. This means that /. readers are more scientifically literate than the rest of the world.
Depressed people are also likely to self medicate with cigarettes or alcohol. And using cigarettes or alcohol sometimes leads to depression. In some people, it leads to a positive feedback loop.
media or not. Mulch-tasking stimulates ADHD. Single-tasking, sharp-razor-thin focus is more efficient in any type of work.
Slashdot is my only bookmark and the only website I visit, and as a result it is the only type of media I consume and there is no reason to multitask.
Am I finally ready for happiness?
I read this as I am listening to Pantera, with Facebook, Slashdot, personal e-mail, and work e-mail in opened windows while doing Math homework. Apparently I am on the verge of suicide, based on this article.
sudo make me a sandwich
I always have the T.V. going when on the computer, heck it's never off. I have no mental health issues, nor depressed or anxious. I am on the other hand very ADHD. I've found I don't watch T.V. much, so don't have cable or satellite payments, just what's over the air (THIStv and MEtv mostly). I'll be playing Battlefield 3 and find I've been watching a Spanish station (for example) the last 3 hours and not even noticed. I'm always on the internet, but don't do the social sites, I have a 5 year old twitter account with two messages or tweets I guess. When I poop I play games or read the internet on my Tablet or Cell phone, am I nuts :}
When therapists are treating depression and other psychological problems, they recommend keeping video games, Internet and TV time down to a minimum. Some even put a time limit of 2 hours. Getting out and exercising and being face to face with people and doing meaningful work will help one with their depression and weight control.
So most people that watch say... a music video... are depressed or anxious?
Sounds legit.
the more informations you receive, the more you are depressed. i call it the "bad news-syndrome". for example: if you see a lot of stuff from all around the world, wich comes unfiltered to your mind, then you are in a situation wich is difficult to handle for your brain. because your brain will construct links between random stuff, wich, in fact, has nothing to do withit. what means that you will think that you life in a world of conspiracys. look at the suicide rate of so called "hackers" and people, who are intelligent and well informated about the things that are going on in the world. a lot of them are depressed or paranoid. latest example: McAfee.
and i now what i am talking about, i experienced it on myself while i had trouble with the police and the government. i didn't left my house without phone-jamers and stuff. and YES, i had a good reason to be paranoid, but you have to keep a distance between yourself and the shit wich is going on. otherwise you are in danger to be trapped in a microcosmos, where it is hard to find an exit from.
excuse my bad englisch, i'm german, but i hope you know what i want to say.
...that they've admitted they don't know the direction of causation. Usually stories like these breathlessly report that all our lives are in terrible danger because of some link that they can't be bothered to detail in the story, but rather it should be taken for granted that the researchers have some knowledge about the correlation that they failed to mention in their report... ad nauseum. Dare I say it: - put a mark in the column for "correlation != causation" -
Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
"'While that question will not be easy to answer, it is worth pursing because the practical implications of the findings depend on the causal direction,' he said."
This must be fake! Or at least it is the first time I hear a psychologist speaking of causal directions. Is sound like a good study just because of that caveat.
There may be progress in this world!
thinking about the world depresses me in general, and every time i hear about a new reality tv show my faith in humanity drops. i like having a good movie to distract me, but i'm scatter brained and prob already seen the movie, so i'll read, sort mp3s, etc, given each only partial attention but that's just me...
Seeing so much information at once and in such a state of spin these days, i could see this leading to more anxiety. I'm also willing to bet that people who use multiple sources of media spend sometimes inordinately long amounts of time on them. We've seen what fury the current propaganda machines can whip up over the last year alone...so it's no surprise really. It's exactly why i can't watch TV anymore...because it just really pisses me off to no end...i can read it on the net...where i can pick and choose my news with no serious considerations, but watching what passes for news really gets to me these days...along with how many people are either believing it outright, or by proxy, by giving it a legitimate discussion. Then there is Social Media...take facebook for example...people go on there to tell the world and show them all how wonderful their lives are...but in actuality these days is easily comparable to talking to an empty room...and with so many people 'fishing' for activity on social media to help them define who they are, when there isn't much interest in anything that they post...over time, that can get to a person with insecurities of one thing or another...then try to put the two together...I've had to take many friends out of my feed over the last election...because i couldn't stand watching otherwise intelligent people be so consumed with such drivel as if it were all true...reciting the talking points as if they were real and had actual meaning...the only thing it's showing me is how much underlying stupidity, selfishness and bigotry that still runs rampant in our 'modern society'...
There are three kinds of people in the world. Those that can count, and those that can't.
No wonder TV news is so depressing.
...is not an excuse to trot out lazy memes.
depressed and socially anxious people start media multi-tasking as a distraction. anyone who performs media multi-tasking is bound to make some eSocial blunders, which can lead to depression and social anxiety.
PC1, Monitor 1: EVE Online
:(
PC1, Monitor 2: Rock n' Rolla
PC2, Monitor 1: Guild Wars 2
PC2, Monitor 2: Chrome
I must be really depressed.
I'd say this is pseudoscience but...I'm trying not to feed my inner troll...
This is definitely shoddy science work. Their definition of 'media' is one of many examples...
I've researched media usage, media usefulness, geospatial correlations, etc. in an academic setting and the definition this study uses for 'media' is...depressingly narrow.
'media' is a book, billboard...anything that has symbols. Usually researchers narrow the language to 'digital media'...but that requires a more refined, less salacious theory...which doesn't get headlines.
Don't even get me started on how research studies like this use the word 'multitasking'
Look, IAAS and this research is garbage...move along...
Thank you Dave Raggett
These quacks push this shit to frame your ass as a fucking lunatic. Then you lose more constitutional rights.
If the oath breakers stopped shoving all these fucking unconstitutional laws out every two hours we wouldn't be so righteously (your fucking us with your batshit bullshit) fucking pissed off. We wouldn't be uncertain about the future. The problem is the elite have set themselves up to manage a bunch of compartmentalized shit so deep, they can't function anymore. When the monetary system pops this punk ass psychiatrist's BS will be reduced to hot air.
FUCK THE DOMESTIC TERRORISTS (called psychiatrists) EXPLOITING THE DSM
Trying time and again to find anything worthwhile and only finding boring, meaningless drivel instead of content, but keeping trying in the vain hope to get something sensible after some digging, that's what makes me anxious and depressed.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Negative feedback loop?
Slashdot depresses me. So does CNN, Redit... It's like a trifecta of misery. I try to keep Pandora open to cheer me up but then it decides to play me a Metallica song and I'm right back to being miserable.
Given that I can't afford to pay the publisher's ludicrous $51 for 24 hours access to this paper, I have to glean information about the study from the abstract and summaries.
This study is, at best, a preliminary study. The researchers use a small sample size which they generalise to a large population (they sample 319 people) and they are not using a random sample (they used college undergrads, presumably self-selected). So, basically, what this tells us is that there is some correlation between certain kinds of media use behaviours with *possibly* depressed/anxious undergraduates at Michigan State. It is highly inaccurate statistically speaking to generalise these results to the general population. At best, this study might suggest that there is phenomena here that is worthy of further examination by a proper study.
I'm not criticising the researchers: preliminary studies like this are the first step to getting funding for a more robust study, and they're not claiming anything earth-shattering or being sensationalist. But /. readers need to be aware that this is preliminary research, and does not mean what the headline suggests it does. A better headline would be something like "Preliminary research suggests there may be value in studying the relationship between multiple media use and depression"
On a related note, I wish psychologists would stop using students as guinea pigs and then publishing papers on the results. We already know waaay too much about college undergraduates.
Which of the scientific discourses of psychologists did you mean?
The one I referred to was that of Sigmund Fraud and his merry gnomes.
This story is such a freaking bummer.
It makes me so sad I'm opening tabs like a porn storm.
Mmm. Porn.
That's pretty much ridiculous. So you're attempting to lead to a scientific label on all people born since 1980 as social anxiety ridden neckbeards. I would think the fact that people multi-media-multi-task now is a sign that we can actually handle more things at a time.
How about this: people that exhibit a high level of multi-tasking have a higher probability of being bored easily. People that are bored easily have a higher probability of being depressed.
The summary, and the linked article for that matter, both imply that there must be an arrow of causality between A (depression, anxiety) and B (multiple media input seeking). Does A cause B, or B cause A? However, that's a flawed view of this situation.
The old adage that "correlation is not causation" is apt here... correlation does not prove a direct causal link. What correlation does do, however, is suggest the possibility of a causal relationship, whether direct, indirect, or parallel.
The real answer could be that some other factor C (or combination of factors) causes *both* A and B. This is the interpretation that seems most logical to me, but of course, I have no proof.
Anyway, my suspicion is that nerds like to overload on input, and that nerds are also more susceptible to depression/anxiety. That's how I know that I am a nerd. :)
Getting tired of Slashdot... moving to Usenet comp.misc for a while.
Think about it.
Women are stereotypically better at multi-tasking than men
Therefore, women are more depressed than men.
Therefore, women need a man around to be happy.
Sounds legit to me! Time to hit the bars with my pickup line "Hey baby... if you want to be less depressing, how about you get with ME!" In theory, this would work doubly well on lesbians.
Wish me luck!
What does Cock and Ball Torture have to do with solving depression? Any specific style needed?
I'll have to give that a try.
BTW, I'm reading slashdot and watching an Asian horror movie now. Sometimes "multiple media" just means that neither one is worth our full attention, but I'm fairly certain the CBT will get my full attention shortly.
Add my anecdotal evidence to the pile. In my own case, I have been depressed on account of the amazing suckitude of my life, and have deliberately turned to the distraction of multiple forms of media (books, TV, music, interwebs, beer, etc.), often simultaneously. Recognizing the external factors of my life that make it suck are beyond my control, and thinking about these things leads directly to depression, it is only reasonable to prevent thinking about these things by occupying my mind with anything else at all.
1.Netcraft confirms:In Soviet Russia all your base welcomes a beowolf cluster of CowboyNeal overlords. 2.? 3.Profit!!1!
on one screen, having two dozen tabs open with various documentations, and one dozen source files open for editing. Sometimes the TV is on as well. I must be a very depressed person???
I think that the comment sections ("forums") in most places can cause depression or make it worse in some people. If you think who are the ones making comments:
1. Those who want to complain: everything is so bad.
2. Those who are aggressive or angry.
3. Those who want to troll.
4. Those who really think they have something important to say.
5. Those who are doing drugs and stay happy (even after putting down by 1..4).
As for point 4 I think having a good keyboard or no keyboard might also make a difference (tablet users).