Maybe The Internet's Not The Most Addictive And Depressing Thing Ever
Posted by DerekMead on Wednesday, Jun 29, 2011
With 4Loko decaffeinated and Sober College now offering enrollment, it seems the latest scourge destined to destroy the lives of college students is none other than our old friend, the Internet. At least, it may be, according to a recent study by Dr. Dimitri Christakis of Seattle Children’s Research Institute. Christakis had 224 college students at a pair of universities take the Internet Addiction Test, a gem of an exam that asks subjects to evaluate, among other things, just how much web surfing is getting in the way of doing chores and having sex.
Christakis et al found that 4% of their respondents scored in the “occasionally problematic or addicted range of the IAT”, while 12% had “moderate or severe depression” according to a separate evalutation. The association was statistically significant, although it’s unclear what exactly about the Internet that’s bumming everyone out.
“Pediatricians and parents continue to report overuse of the Internet in their patients and children, respectively,” Christakis is quoted as saying in a press release about the study. “Given the Internet is woven into the fabric of the lives of this generation of children, concerns about the potential for addiction are warranted and today’s college students are clearly at risk, given the considerable exposure that they have to the Internet.”
Condescending links between young children and college-aged adults aside, the study’s focus on the Internet and depression is yet another look at how continual increases in Internet use and social media is wreaking havoc on young folk, whether its cyberbullying, sexting, or even World of Warcraft driving college kids to drop out.
Christakis’ study is different from others in its scope. Rather than singling out a problem like one of the aforementioned, Christakis insinuates that Internet usage in general is becoming a very real danger to the collegiate population, largely based on a definition of excessive use that doesn’t reflect students’ ever-increasing connectivity or that of connectivity’s role in work and studies. If occasionally forgetting to do the dishes or not feeling frisky is a sign of problematic internet usage, wouldn’t work or school themselves sometimes count as problematic for a whole hell of a lot of too?
With real-life relationships having been started through MMORPGs for years now (not always positively), it’s evident that heavy internet usage can have actual social value. At the other end of the spectrum, internet addiction has been officially a real thing for some time. But 25% of college students say alcohol has affected their classwork, 31% show signs of alcohol dependence, and non-recreational drug abuse is commonplace.
Christakis’ study shows that far more students are depressed than are addicted to the web. So while the internet’s life destroying abilities may or may not be scalable, college students and administrators still have a whole mess of more prevalent problems that need attention, and it would seem, sadly, that the Internet is just another in a long line of addictive drugs that’s left us feeling hung over. To be sure, you can take the test yourself
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Writer, photographer, record collector and all around science nerd with a zoology background. Follow me @drderekmead.
