You may Develop Depression from Internet Addiction

The study was conducted among 1000 teenagers between 13 to 18 years in China’s Southern Guangzhou city. Nine months later, 84 of them were found as suffering from depression and those who were on the Internet excessively were one-and-a-half times more vulnerable than moderate users. They get agitated when they are not in front of the computer and they loose all kind of interest for social interaction.

“Some spend more than 10 hours a day, they are really problematic users and they show signs and symptoms of addictive behavior … browsing the Internet, playing games,” said Lam, co-author of the paper which was published on Tuesday in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

The research also found that those teenagers don’t want to see friends, don’t want to join family gatherings, don’t want to spend time with parents or siblings. Results suggested that young people who are initially free of mental health problems could develop depression pathologically  as a consequence of excessive use of the Internet. The depression can occur due to lack of sleep or stress from on line games.

Lam further said that this is the first study in terms of pathological use of the Internet as a possible cause for depression. A previous study pointed to depression as a possible reason for Internet addiction and several other studies showed a link between the two without clearly saying which was the cause and which one the result.