Small study links depression, becoming dependent on Facebook

In a small study of Facebook users in Poland, depression was one predictor of greater vulnerability to becoming dependent on using the social media site.

Facebook intrusion is similar to an addiction, but the emphasis is on the way a person’s relationships with others are affected. Being young, male and spending a lot of time online also predicted a greater likelihood of unhealthy dependence on Facebook.

“We know a little bit already about Facebook usage and personality,” said Dr. Robert Cloninger, a psychiatrist with the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, who wasn’t involved in the study.

Cloninger said he is concerned the study didn’t properly take personality traits into consideration.

“If you are introverted and socially shy, then your social skills may not be very good,” he said. “So using your intelligence to navigate the Internet allows you to create an image that may not be very accurate, but that gets you social contacts.”

For the study published May 8 in European Psychiatry, Agata Blachnio, a researcher at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin and her colleagues recruited Polish Facebook users to answer questionnaires, including mental health tests.

The main goal, Blachnio’s team wrote, was to examine “potential associations” between Internet use in general, Facebook in particular and depression.

“A large body of research … shows that Internet addiction often co-occurs with other disorders, such as depression, loneliness, sexual dysfunction, or other addictions,” the study team wrote. “The main aim of our study was to answer the question of whether depression and dai- ly Internet use time was related to Facebook intrusion.”

They defined Facebook intrusion as “excessive involvement in Facebook, disrupting day-to-day activities and interpersonal relationships.”

Blachnio and her colleagues enrolled 672 native Polish-speaking participants between the ages of 15 and 75.

The study team found that the amount of time spent on the Internet daily was associated with levels of Facebook intrusion and that Facebook intrusion was linked with higher depression scores. But time spent on the Internet every day was not linked to depression.

REUTERS