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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.
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.
"'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!
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.
...is not an excuse to trot out lazy memes.
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
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.
Not to generalize or detract from the spirit of your message, but reading your post lead me to believe that the diagnosis may be accurate in your case.
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.
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.
The first is a myth. Humans suck at multitasking, period.
The second might be true. Insecure egos are often the ones making the loudest complaints of others being responsible for their 'plights'. Feminism has morphed into one giant example of this. Truly secure, empowered people don't need bailing out by the state or anyone else.
The third is probably true, but it is also true that men need women around. The problem is that this culture has thrown that symbiosis out of balance, making both genders miserable.
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.
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