From The Metro:
Spending too much time online may leave you depressed, according to the first major study into the effects of web use on mental health. Surfing the internet has a 'darker side' which has hooked twice as many people in Britain as are addicted to gambling, researchers claim. Young people are most at risk, with the average age of addicts just 21, the study found. It also warned of the dangers of social networking sites if they replaced conventional interaction.
Researcher Dr Catriona Morrison said: 'The internet is like a drug for some people: it soothes them, it keeps them calm. If people are addicted, it can affect a person's ability to perform at work or they may be failing to do chores so they can go online.' However, she admitted more work needed to be done to establish whether addiction or mental illness comes first...
Hasn't she got anything better to do with her time? What sort of 'research' did she carry out anyway?
Wednesday 3 February 2010
You're all mad! Allegedly. Possibly.
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7 comments:
Well, if she wasn't doing this vital scientific research, she'd be asking 'Do you want fries with that?'...
According to the daily Record "used the internet to quiz more than 1300 people aged between 16 and 51 over their web use.
... identified a small group of 18 hardcore "internet addicted" users who spend hours online each day"
So she sent out 1300 emails, which by definition didn't have a control group of people not online & was not a random selection & got 18 replies of people who spend hours online (!!) who were a bit cynical about politicians, researchers like this etc.
So her "research is no more & probably less valid than the polls you run every week Mark. But she ia "Catriona Morrison MA (Glasgow), DPhil (York), CPsychol. Senior Lecturer in Experimental Psychology Director of Learning and Teaching ..." which makes it "scientific" enough for the papers.
You are ignoring the absolute fact that Derek Smalls of Spinal Tap spent time in rehab for Internet Addiction.It says so on the Internet.
We will start hearing more and more stories like this, as the goverment tries to push for internet "protection".
It does keep us busy though, all the posting and researching but it's not so much addiction as having a job to do.
NC, thanks for extra background info. So the 'research' was pretty worthless, eh?
More likely the other way around. People who are depressed are more likely to use the internet.
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