According to a major international study of two million people published today by the Oxford Internet Institute, the links between internet use and mental well-being are tenuous at best.
The study examined the psychological well-being of two million people between 2005 and 2022 in 168 countries; no connection could be found between internet use and mental disorders. This study used national statistics of the countries studied on Internet and mobile broadband usage. The researchers observed that, on average, both negative and positive experiences increased over these years, but there is little evidence that (mobile) Internet use is associated with these changes.
Professor Andrew Przybylski of the Oxford Internet Institute and Associate Professor Matti Vuorre of Tilburg University conducted the study, which shows that over the past two decades there have been only small and uneven changes in mental health well-being and safety worldwide.
Professor Przybylski said: “We have looked hard for irrefutable evidence linking technology and well-being and we have not found it.” For his part, Professor Vuorre points out: “We have examined the most comprehensive data on well-being and internet use ever taken into account “Although we were unable to address the causal effects of Internet use, our descriptive results suggested small and inconsistent associations.”
Filtering the results by age group and gender revealed no specific demographic patterns among internet users, which include women and young girls. Actually, On average across countries, women’s life satisfaction increased more strongly during the period examined.
Research into the impact of Internet technologies is stalled because the most needed data is collected and stored behind closed doors by technology companies.
According to Professor Przybylski, “We have carefully considered whether there is anything special about age or gender, but there is no evidence to support the common idea that certain groups are more at risk.” The researchers put the conclusions to a more extreme test to confirm to see if they had missed something and found that they had A greater spread of mobile broadband can be expected to increase life satisfactionalthough this connection is too small to be of practical importance.
But the team insists that tech companies need to provide more data for there to be conclusive evidence about the impact of internet use. According to the study, research on the impact of Internet technologies is stagnating because the most needed data is collected and stored behind closed doors by technology companies and online platforms.
The researchers emphasize that it is crucial to examine the data on individual acceptance and use of internet-based technologies in more detail and in a more transparent manner for everyone involved. This data exists and is continually analyzed by global technology companies for marketing and product improvement purposes, but unfortunately is not accessible for independent research.
In the study, researchers compare two different studies of mental health and well-being data with countries’ internet users per capita and mobile broadband subscriptions and usage to find out whether internet use predicts mental well-being. In the second study, they use data on the frequency of anxiety, depression and self-harm between 2000 and 2019 in around 200 countries and analyze their relationships with internet use.
Well-being was assessed using data from face-to-face and telephone surveys conducted by local interviewers in the respondents’ native language. Mental health was assessed using statistical estimates of depressive disorders, anxiety disorders and self-harm in approximately 200 countries between 2000 and 2019, based on aggregated health data from World Health Organization member states.
REFERENCE
Global Wellbeing and Mental Health in the Internet Age