Studies link exorbitant Internet use to depression symptoms in children

By Staff Writer

The Internet is a big part of daily life for many adolescents, but a recent study reveals that excessive online habits may lead to depression.

A report published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine found that teenagers who reported "unhealthy" Internet use were two and a half times more likely to develop symptoms of depression, according to a Reuters report. The study assembled more than 1,000 high school students in China, and each child filled out two sets of questionnaires that were spaced nine months apart.

The forms determined the extent of the teens' Internet use, including questions like "how often do you fear that life without the Internet would be boring, empty or joyless?"

Researchers discovered that 8 percent of the teenagers who had entered the study with no signs of mental health problems developed symptoms of depression in the nine months separating their visits. According to the results, those students with "pathological" Internet use were at greater risk for developing depression.

According to a recent article in the Herald Scotland, psychiatrists in Edinburgh completed a study that revealed that young people with a history of self-harming spent much more time on the Internet than healthy adolescents.