Spending hours on the Internet may trigger depression, say researchers from Australia and China. Numerous studies have documented the link between mental illness and pathological Internet use, though the majority have found that excessive online behavior tends to occur as a result of conditions such as anxiety and depression, either as a way to self-medicate or as a manifestation of the person’s mental state. But what about the reverse? Could pathological Internet browsing lead to depression or other mental problems in people who are otherwise healthy?
That’s the question Lawrence Lam, an epidemiologist at the University of Notre Dame in Fremantle, Australia, and his colleague Zi-Wen Peng at SunYat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China, wanted to answer. Using a database of more than 1,000 high school students in Guangzhou, the pair assessed Internet use and mental-health status over a period of nine months. At the start of the study, about 6% of the students met the criteria for pathological Web surfing, based on their answers to a 20-question survey assessing addiction to the Internet. These students reported feeling moody, nervous or uncomfortable when they were not on the computer.
