Now researchers in the UK have tried to find out what many of us are wondering: How does the internet really affect our mental health? And to find answers, they went to great lengths. Together, they studied data from 2 million people, spread over 168 countries. And the data has been collected over a period of 18 years – from 2005 until last year. – We were looking hard for a “smoking gun” that connects technology and well-being together. Professor Andrew Przybylski at the University of Oxford says so in a press release. But this would prove to be difficult. More satisfied now than before – The idea that the internet and mobile phones have a general negative effect on people’s mental health is probably not entirely correct, says Przybylski. He says that the associations they found in the study were much smaller than what might be expected if the internet had been psychologically harmful to people. The researchers behind the new study drew on previous studies that looked at computer use and well-being. In addition, they used health data from countries that are members of the World Health Organization. Researcher and professor Andrew Przybylski. Photo: University of Oxford The basis compared them with the use of the internet and mobile broadband. Furthermore, they filtered the results by age and gender. But the researchers found no specific demographic patterns among internet users. Nor among women and young girls. – There is no evidence to support popular ideas that certain groups are more vulnerable than others, says the Oxford professor. In fact, they discovered that women were generally more satisfied with life now than in the past. – Reassuring Thomas Potrebny is an associate professor at the University of Western Norway. He has a PhD in psychology and researches generational differences in mental health among young people. He believes the new study is an important contribution to the ongoing debate. – Although this study does not aim to be explanatory, it clearly shows that there does not appear to be any major international deterioration in mental health. And the use of the internet also does not seem to be able to explain the changes that may occur. The researcher from Norway believes this is reassuring. – It is in a way reassuring to see a study, which uses almost all available data over such a long period of time, by a long way suggests that the impact of technological advances does not appear to have a significant negative impact on mental health. The debate about whether the use of smartphones and tablets in schools and kindergartens should be restricted is ongoing. And then you should know that these are not recommendations based on research. At least not for now, says Potrebny. Thomas Potrebny is employed at the Department of Knowledge-Based Practice, University of Western Norway. Photo: Høgskulen på Vestlandet Differences from country to country Although the Norwegian researcher thinks the new study is good, it still has a number of shortcomings, he explains. Because it is challenging to compare data across countries. And some will be able to argue that the differences that emerge do not make the results credible when it comes to mapping causality. But it still highlights an important point, says Potrebny. – The power of explaining that the use of the internet and social media is the cause of changes in mental health problems among generations is probably not as great as one might think. And the findings in the study show that there are differences from country to country. From 1990 until today, mental disorders among people in Norway have increased. Photo: Terje Pedersen / NTB Increase in mental health problems in Norway To get an even better overview of the situation, the researchers believe that technology companies should release more information. Part of the problem is that a lot of data is kept hidden. – This data exists and is continuously analyzed by global companies, but is unfortunately not available for independent research. That’s what Andrew Przybylski says. In Norway, it is known that there has been an increase in mental health problems over the past 30 years, says Thomas Potrebny. – The negative development probably started when people began to use the internet to a greater extent. And we currently cannot rule out that such use may have had a negative impact in this country.
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Found no connection between internet use and poor mental health among 2 million people – news Trøndelag – Local news, TV and radio
