People with poor mental health are more likely to surf the internet in search of negative content, which worsens their symptoms, according to a study led by researchers at UCL (England).
According to the study, the relationship between poor mental health and online behavior is causal and bidirectional.
The study was published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.
Researchers have developed a browser extension tool that adds “content tags” to web pages, similar to nutrition labels on food. These labels are designed to help users make healthier and more informed decisions about the content they consume by focusing on the emotional impact of the content as well as its practicality and informativeness.
Poor mental health, influenced by the content we consume on the internet
“Our results show that browsing negative pages reflects a person’s mood, but can also make it worse. This creates a vicious cycle that can perpetuate long-term mental health problems,” said Professor Tali Sharot, from UCL Psychology & Language Sciences, Max Planck UCL Center for Computational Psychiatry and Aging Research and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, co-author of the study.
More than 1,000 study participants answered questions about their mental health and shared their online browsing history with the researchers. Using natural language processing methods, the researchers analyzed the emotional tone of the web pages visited. They found that people with worse moods and more severe mental symptoms tended to access negative content more often, and after viewing it, they felt even worse.
In another experiment, researchers manipulated the content of web pages accessed by participants, exposing some of them to negative content and others to neutral content. Those who were exposed to negative content reported worse mood afterward, demonstrating a causal effect of negative content on mood. Also, when they were allowed to freely browse afterwards, they chose to access more negative content again, which confirms the bidirectional relationship: negative content affects mood, and an aggravated mood stimulates the consumption of negative content, writes Eurek Alert.
Information labels
“These results contribute to the ongoing debate about the relationship between mental health and online behaviour. Most previous research has focused on the amount of use, such as screen time or frequency of social media use, leading to mixed conclusions. Instead, we focus on the type of content accessed and find that its emotional tone is causally and bidirectionally linked to mental health and mood,” said Christopher Kelly, PhD student and co-author of the study, from UCL Psychology & Language Sciences. Max Planck UCL Center for Computational Psychiatry and Aging Research and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
To test whether an intervention can influence browsing choices and improve mood, the researchers conducted another study. They added content tags to the results of a Google search, indicating whether each result could improve mood, worsen it, or have no impact. Participants were more likely to choose positive sites labeled as beneficial to their mood, and those who accessed such sites reported a better mood afterward.
“We are used to seeing food labels that provide nutritional information such as sugar, calories or protein, helping us make more informed decisions about food. A similar approach could be applied to the content we consume online, giving people the opportunity to make healthier choices”, concluded Prof. Sharot.
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Source: www.descopera.ro
