Internet Could Help Mediate Negative Effects of Psychopathologies

Recent research suggests that people with depression will have levels of hostility reduced by going online

As technology has continued emerge as an incredibly huge part of the lives of many people, particularly younger generations, concerns have been raised about the negative effects that spending too much time using these groundbreaking developments has on users’ mental well-being.

Recent research suggests that technology may not affect everyone the same way, depending on whether or not they have depression or an internet addiction. A recent study released by a group of researchers examining college students in Taiwan’s behavior indicates that people as a whole do not necessarily get more hostile when going online.

Entering the study, the researchers had planned to examine how hostility online and in the real world differ, as well as if depression, internet addiction and internet activity would make a user more likely to have higher levels of hostility while online.

Contrary to what was hypothesized, the study found user’s self-reported levels of hostility decreased when going online across all measured dimensions of hostility. However, the study, which was released earlier this year, also suggests that subjects with depression and/or an internet addiction have higher levels of hostility while compared to those without these issues.

Depression decreases while online, but is still high

In every dimension of hostility either depression or internet addiction had the highest t-score and the other independent variable was the second highest. The only exception to this was when online gaming outpaced depression in regards to expressive hostility behavior when online.

10.4 percent of subjects were found to have depression based off of the criteria of the CES-D.

The study also found that depression was the most associated of the independent variables with hostility when examining hostility cognition, hostility affection, suppressive hostility behavior and total hostility in both real life, as well as online.

While those with depression had higher scores in each dimension of hostility than those who were using the internet for gaming and chatting, the depressed subjects’ total hostility was lower when online than in real life.

The most noticeable decreases in t-scores for subjects with depression came from total hostility which fell from 16.00 when in the real world to 10.06 when online.
The study also finds that the increases in t-scores for those with internet addiction when examining expressive hostility behavior, which rose from 4.07 in real life to 5.47 when online and hostility affection, which rose from 6.22 to 6.50.

According to the researchers, the high levels of hostility both online and offline that was found in subjects with depression fits in with previous research that suggests that hostility predicts depression.

In explaining a potential cause for the decrease in hostility while going online for depressed subjects, the researchers mention the possibility of social support that the depressed subjects get online that may not be available elsewhere as a potential cause for their lowered levels of hostility across all measured dimensions.

Online chatting and gaming users still hostile

In the study, the users that were utilizing the internet for chatting with other users or playing video games did not have as strong of a connection with hostility as the previously mentioned psychopathologies did.

Most of the t-scores found for the subjects who used the internet for chatting and gaming purposes were found to be insignificant. Out of all of the scores, the highest was when expressive hostility behavior of the gaming subject when online was given a score of 4.84, which was lower than nearly all of the t-scores for subjects with depression and internet addiction.

The researchers attributed the subjects who played video games online to the fact that they games often times involve competition and violence could explain not only the higher levels of hostility while online, but in real life as well compared to people who use the internet for other purposes.

A 2005 study by Browne and Hamilton-Giachritsis found that the more people are exposed to violent images through the media, the more likely that they are to engage in violent behavior.

However, the researchers also stated that the users who used the internet for gaming and chatting purposes still had higher levels of hostility than the subjects who were using it for other reasons.

The study also finds that those who use the internet primarily for gaming or chatting purposes do not show a great deal of variability in expressed hostility behavior between the real world and when online. On the other hand, the also study found that those who use the internet primarily for other purposes have a more marked decrease in expressed hostility behavior when they are online compared to in real life.

Previous research suggests that people may be more hostile when utilizing the internet because of the anonymity that it provides any user who wants it. The findings of the study go against this theory of deindividuaton, which is the separation between a user’s true self and who they are online.

The researchers suggest that while a person does have a fair amount of control over their identity on the internet, they still want to maintain a good reputation on websites such as Facebook and Twitter, which forces them to have user IDs, and thus has kept them from being fully anonymous.

They also suggested that the friends that he subjects had online are likely to be skilled socially and anxiety in the users that they are chatting with.

It is also suggested that the entertainment features of the internet, such as the capability of watching movies online is also something that allows users to better relax, and consequently leads to lower levels of hostility for the people not gaming or chatting online.

There is still much that this study does not address

One particular limitation of the study is that it is based in. While the measures used do better examine the subjects’ response, it remains to be seen how the
findings of this study would relate to other cultures.

It is important to note that due to the structure of this study, it is impossible to determine causality from the results. The researchers also acknowledge that their data is reliant on self-reports from college students, which may not be fully accurate.

The study drew 1,124 males and 1,224 for a total of 2,348 subjects from eight colleges located in rural, suburban and urban Taiwan.

Researchers used the Chen Internet Addiction Scale, the Center for Epidemiological Studies for Depression Scale and the Chinese version of Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory to measure subjects in this study.

As online news becomes more popular, slight differences between groups remain

Recent research indicates that people with higher levels of education are more drawn to political news

As computers and mobile devices have grown increasingly popular in America, practically every news outlet in the country has begun to post news content on their websites and anyone with access to internet has a myriad of choices at his or her news-seeking fingertips. Recent research indicates that how people decide what news to look at online may be influenced by their level of education.

A study conduced by University of Maryland senior journalism major Christopher Grady examines how education level affects how frequently people use the internet to find news on politics, sports, business, entertainment and local news.

The research showed that regardless of educational level, the internet has become a vital means for people to receive their news, as 40 out of 46 subjects stated that they read news online at least once time per day. None of the respondents stated that they read news online less than two to three times per week.

Politics and educational level have strongest relationship

The research also indicates that those who have more advanced education are more likely to utilize the internet to find out about current events involving pressing worldly issues, such as politics.

Given that level of education did not create large differences in read news online, none of the correlations between education level and a how frequently subjects looked at a particular topic of news were found to be significant.

However, two of the larger insignificant correlations found that after survey data was reverse coded there was a correlation of .150 between how frequently subjects read political news and educational levels and a correlation of .130 between education level and interest in politics, which suggests that those who only attended high school or college read less political news than their more educated counterparts.

More educated people less interested in sports and entertainment news

The only two significant correlations between subjects’ level of education and how much interest they showed in a particular topic came as correlations of -.317 and -.310 were found for an item that asked how much subjects looked at sports news compared to other topic and how high they rated their interest in sports respectively.

The study also found a reverse scored correlation of -.193, which indicates that educated subjects are less likely to be frequent readers of sports news. There was also a -.907 correlation between subjects reported interest in politics and sports, which was found to have a strong statistical significance.

More educated participants were also less interested in entertainment news as well as the research found that was a -.118 correlation between education level and how much subjects went online for entertainment news compared to how much they looked at other types of news online. Unlike the negative relationship between sports and politics, the study found that interest in entertainment and politics had no correlation. This finding indicates that interest in politics and entertainment are not as mutually exclusive as sports and politics.

In general, subjects are not interested in using the internet to view local news as there was essentially no correlation between education level and any of the items asking about local news. In total 31 out of 46 subjects stated that they were either significantly or slightly less interest in local news than other subjects.

A possible explanation for this is that these subjects are using the internet to fully explore what is going on in the world that they would have difficulty finding out about otherwise.

There is much that is still unknown about why people pursue different types of news online

Given that this study involves correlational data it is impossible to definitively state that someone’s level of education will dictate how frequently someone seeks out news on a particular subject via the internet. A confounding variable of the study could be that difference in interests exists between age groups, according to Grady.

Grady, who was the sole researcher in the study, relied on a convenience sample, as he sent the survey to friends at the university, his family members as well as his colleagues at Education Week.

The biggest limitation of the study was that the sample overwhelmingly favored those who did not pursue their education any further than their undergraduate career. Of the 31 male and 15 female participants in the study, 34 were either pursuing an undergraduate degree or had completed it, but did not continue their education.
Only four subjects ended their educations at high school, six attended a masters program and one subject had a doctorate.