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."

Comments

Also called "multiple-tab syndrome"

[PopAndGame]

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.

Re:Also called "multiple-tab syndrome"

[anubi]

Yes. as humans, we are NOT identical. Our physical traits vary. So do our psychological traits. Its not just us, either. Talk to anyone who has raised animals. I have raised kittens. Some kittens are loveable. Some are skittish. Some come out just plain wild.

I found out about this several years ago when new management took over at the old aerospace company I used to work for. A serious clash of personality types resulted as my former supervisors ( old-school engineers ) were replaced by men of the suit and tie... MBA's.

I did not last long. We had completely different value systems. I was the artist type and wanted it done just right; they were business oriented and were optimizing for maximum quarterly profit.

I was laid off. Just as good. I am pretty sure I would have gone crazy if I had been kept around, as I was too stubborn to just walk away.

I was convinced I was crazy, so I went to the local community college and talked to the dean of psychology, and told him I wanted to be evaluated - and I flat did not trust anyone in the medical profession who had a fiduciary incentive in the outcome.

I told him my story, and he recognized what happened. He set up a array of tests ( Myers-Briggs, Keirsey, and a couple others ) that presented hundreds of situations and queried how I would handle it. All on the computer.

It took me several days to go through the long version ( the shorter versions are available on the internet - the ones I got took several hours each to complete ).

It turns out psychologists have been able to classify personality types into different categories, just as hair color, eye color, skin color have categories. I am strongly INTP and have asperger traits. Its not a malfunction as much as it is a descriptor. It explained why I have absolutely no interest in sports, or why I would consider a thermodynamics book far more interesting than a bestseller novel.

I think a lot of us here on Slashdot have similar attributes, as this site - by its nature and content - caters to our type. I would bet few of us give much of a damm about the Super Bowl, but would find a new way of lighting a building worth a read.

We think "they" are nuts, crazy, completely oblivious to reality. "They" think the same about us.

Take Malthus... he talked hundreds of years ago about mankind reproducing so much he overshoots the capacity of this planet to support us - resulting in a massive die-off. I fear this too. Or something called "Peak Oil". I've seen the production curves and thoroughly understand the logistic equation the depletion curves are based on, and it scares the hell out of me. Yet "normal people" seem to take this in stride.

Who is to say who is crazy?

Re:Makes sense to me

[Hatta]

Hey, AC - go get help, get medicated

Medication doesn't actually work for most people. A 2008 meta-analysis of all clinical trials involving SSRIs, including trials the author had to file FOIA requests to get, shows that SSRIs provide no clinically significant benefit to those with a Hamilton Rating below 23. That's "very severe" depression. Side effects of course occur no matter how depressed you are.

That was 4 years ago, no one has since refuted these findings. I've actually sought treatment for depression in the past couple years. I was given a score of 15 and was offered SSRIs. I asked the psychiatrist how she could ethically offer an addictive drug with many side effects when the best science available showed them to be no more effective than harmless glucose. She had no answer, except to say that in her experience they were effective. As if there was no reason to do blinded, placebo controlled studies.

The only conclusion I can reach from this is that psychiatric treatment for depression in all but the most severe cases is a con. If you can still feed yourself, get your ass to work, and sleep at night there's nothing psychiatry can do for you. You might as well rub a crystal on your forehead.