3 ms·

People Who Are Constantly Online Can Develop Mental Disorders

• fein 14y ago
  "...studied more than 4,100 Swedish men and women between the ages of 20 and 24" ""Daily computer gaming for 1–2 hours meant an increased risk for symptoms of depression in the women," the study found. Often using the computer late at 48 night (and consequently losing sleep) was a prospective risk factor for stress and sleep disturbances, including reduced performance, in both sexes." So in other words, people between the ages of 20-24 who don't sleep enough are having problems? No kidding... I'm also pretty sure any female (who makes it evident that they are, indeed, a female) playing any sort of male dominated online game would become depressed VERY easily given the general caliber of online male/ female social interactions.
• mistercow 14y ago
  As the paper points out, this is an analysis of cross-sectional and prospective studies, so while interesting, this evidence tells us nothing about the direction of causation and cannot account for confounding factors. It could easily be that sleep disorders and depression cause people to spend more time online rather than the converse, or it could be that some external factor causes both increased time online as well as mental disorders. To actually figure out if being online causes these disorders, we'd need a randomized controlled trial.