Here we go again. This is another BBC article that I think misses the point. The claim is that internet use causes depression. Well to be honest with the number of pointless articles like this I'm starting to think they could be on to something.
The exact numbers aren't given, but of the 1.2% of people who claimed to be "addicted" to the internet (18 whole people), "many" of them were depressed. So to get the majority I'll assume "many" to mean "more than 9" but "less than all of them". Let's say 12 for the sake of easy maths. 12 people out of 1319 internet users are depressed. Brilliant. Let's blame the internet for that one.
I mean really. In fact, here's an interesting counter-statistic according to NetDoctor. 2% of people in the UK are depressed at any one time, so the article actually "proves" that the people in the survey have a LOWER rate of depression than average, so the exact OPPOSITE is true. People using the internet are LESS depressed than the general public! Score one for the online community!
Anyway, how is it fair to blame internet use when it was conducted via an ONLINE survey? Everyone who completed it was a net user, therefore their results are hideously skewed. I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that people who use the internet to do surveys are just like me - they use the net a lot and want to make some money while they're at it. And people who have enough money to be comfortable don't need to do online surveys for money. So there's a huge potential area there for more unfair results.
I wouldn't even try to deny I'm a net junkie, but it is one of the ways I fight AGAINST depression. I can use it at work to read about things I like. I can plan what I'm going to do when I get out. I can read articles or look at pictures that make me smile and, just for a second, remove me from the mundane world of office admin work.
So according to statistics (which according to Homer can prove anything), the internet is actually able to lower rates of depression across the country. I rest my case. Free connections for all. Vive la revolution! We'll laugh all the way to the keyboard.
3 comments:
Visiting via your partner's blog, mainly because you refer to yourself as 'himself' which my partner also does. and you don't seem to get pissed off very often for a pissed off scotsman ... no posts since september?
thanks for sharing
martine
Oh I still get angry, but there's no point going over the same things I've written about before. I like to keep the ranting as fresh as possible :)
As usual....I LOVE YOUR RANTING! It is so so so true and it does make me smile! Spot on once again!
:o)
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