The Study of Depression and Excessive Internet Usage

2260 Words5 Pages

Today, more than ever, the world is connected to one another. Whether down the street or across continents, one’s personal information and social life is readily available. With so much of a person’s life available for the world to see, many young adults seem to suffer from issues of depression and lower self-worth than other previous generations. According to a study by Morrison & Gore, in which researchers used items from the Beck Depression Inventory and IA Test to determine a correlation between depression and excessive internet usage. With an estimated 75% of online adults using social media, as referenced in Pew Internet Research findings, does this level of connectivity and accessibility have an adverse effect on those who use it most? In the Pew research, minorities (those who identify themselves as non-white or, at times, non-heterosexual) accounted for the majority of social users. However, not all social media is used equally. In fact, African-Americans and Hispanics were notably more likely than their Caucasian counterparts to use the photo sharing application, Instagram. (Brenner, pg.6). With such an influential, minority presence on these social media sites, the concept of congnitive well-being, or life satisfaction, is brought into question. (Kross, pg.1). Cognitive well-being can be anlyized by beginning a discussion on usage and if this higher usage can create a sort of addictive, and detrimental, habit in minorities. Due to prior comparative studies and various other studies, we are left questioning if social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, have a correlating effect on the emotional and mental well-being on its users, specifically, those who identify with minority groups. Based off of my rese... ... middle of paper ... ... $20 and were entered into a raffle to receive an iPad2 for participating” (Kross et. al, p. 2, ) Data analysis The data can be analyzed in a number of ways that will not be time consuming, as it will be data gathered and coded from a relatively low-item survey. Because the survey will be either in person or online, I predict that my team will be looking explicitly for correlation of life happiness and emotional health, as well as social media use in minorities. I predict that our coding of results as well as our limitations (save for the 15-years that the study was conducted) may be similar to what results were found in the childhood and social withdrawal study. The Katz et. al. study found “that the current study used latent variable modeling to establish a latent social withdrawal construct defined by four indicators of social withdrawal” (Katz, et. al., 1229, ).

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