Science again says: there's no correlation between mental health problems and Internet usage
A comprehensive examination of the internet habits of over 2 million individuals revealed no conclusive evidence of widespread mental health harm stemming from online activities like social media browsing and gaming. Despite prevalent concerns and popular prejudice suggesting that mobile applications might be linked to depression and anxiety, the researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute, conducting what they claim to be the most extensive study of its kind, discovered no substantiating proof for the notion that specific groups are particularly vulnerable to such technological influences. Luckily, the study is open-access.
Nevertheless, Andrew Przybylski, a professor at the institute affiliated with the University of Oxford, pointed out that the crucial data needed to establish a causal connection is currently "absent," stressing the necessity for increased cooperation from tech companies. He emphasized that if certain apps do indeed have detrimental effects on mental health, only the companies responsible for their development possess the user data capable of confirming such assertions.
In my opinion, the most important (slightly simplified by me) extract of the article is this:
Then, to answer our primary research question, we examined the within-countries associations between Internet-technology adoption and mental health. We observed no credible (at the 95% level) associations between Internet adoption and either anxiety, depression, or self-harm. Likewise, per capita mobile-broadband subscriptions were not credible predictors of either anxiety, depression, or self-harm. These results suggested that all else being equal, country-level (mobile) Internet adoption does not predict mental health.
This study comes to validate, once again, the scientific trend of diminishing the effect of Internet on people’s mental health (more information here, here or there). Why then mass media and politicians keep defending the contrary and claiming against the evil made screens (and students)? In Spain, we are now living an intense scandal against the usage of smartphones at schools, precisely, and the popular myth is clearly dominating the debate.
Be careful, the devil is in the details, and the study doesn’t lead to the dismantle of mental health and social networks. That’s a different issue from the Internet usage, and I’m in favour of regulating X (Twitter), Instagram, Facebook, or dating apps, for instance.
The recommended blog
, by Professor , collected some weeks ago various review studies focusing solely in social networks and mental health issues, and surprisingly for me, in all the research article he cited there was no clear evidence between teens’ mental health problems and social networks. In Professors’s words:None of these account for the large recent rise in suicides (or other indices of mental suffering) in teens. The very small effects found in some of the studies have been blown up in the media in ways that augment popular prejudice. It is time for researchers to communicate these findings clearly to the public. Taking smartphones or social media away from kids will not result in a major reversal of their high current rates of anxiety, depression, and suicides.