Switching quickly from Spotify to email to Facebook can be a telltale sign of depression. A recent study extensively correlates specific web habits, such as jumping between different applications, with depression, Mashable reports.
The study by Missouri University of Science and Technology associates observed how 216 university undergraduates surfed the web for a month. About 30 percent of the students had depression, according to the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, an official screening test for the mental condition. These numbers match the national average. Depression affects about 10 percent to 40 percent of the national population of college students at one time. More than 90 percent of U.S. college students use the internet regularly.
So, the opportunity to look at the relationship between Internet activity and depression presented itself. This may be the first study relating depression and Internet use, according to the researchers who looked at a huge range of online activity including downloads, duration, sharing and flow……Read More