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Less screen time and more sleep critical for preventing depression

westernsydney.edu.au

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Re: Less screen time and more sleep critical for preventing depression

#51

Post by bananabiscuit »

metamet wrote: post #46
glogla wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, screen time "doomscrolling", screen time "playing online board game with friends", screen time "reading a book" and screen time "watching a movie" are pretty different screen times.

But they're all... screens. And you're spending your time looking at them, regardless of what's on them and how you interact with it. I do agree that they are different. But they're still screens.

Right, so just because this study doesn’t bother to differentiate between different things people can do with screens, you are saying it’s all the same?

Re: Less screen time and more sleep critical for preventing depression

#52

Post by godelski »

nkozyra wrote: post #8
dpeck wrote: post #5

Not all screen time is the same and it’s far beyond time for us to stop equivocating Facebook/Instagram and other social media nastiness with all the positive things that can be done on a screen. It confuses people, and as we stare down another quarantine and a long cold winter telling people to spend less time with what could be their only contact to the outside world can be actively harmful.

I just read the abstracts of one of the studies[1] and it's really including TV and general computer time, not necessarily social media time. It also references a study that seems to focus more on computer time and "information" overload (at least from the abstract).[2] I think it's a mistake to assume that sedentary screen time is not impactful so long as you're avoiding social media. [1] https://bmcmedicine.biomedc…

I think there are big questions on what screen time actual is though. Isn't general computer time essentially social media? At least for most people? Most people also aren't watching documentaries on TV or doing things that exercise the brain. All admit I didn't read your sources but I'm assuming reading books isn't detrimental so it's probably not the sedentary nature of the activity (I could be completely off). I do think that since these days we use computers so much that it does warrant breaking down the activity.

Does anyone have a study that does do this comparison?

Re: Less screen time and more sleep critical for preventing depression

#53

Post by varispeed »

Isn't that addressing the effect of someone's depression? It's a bit like saying you have a headache because you take painkillers. If person is unhappy "screen time" is just a coping mechanism. If you take it away, then the person will find something else to numb their worries. You need to have an honest talk with yourself or a therapist to get to the bottom why you feel this way and then see how you can address it. These "rule of thumb" things are akin to "why don't you just smile?" or "stop worrying" and don't help.

Re: Less screen time and more sleep critical for preventing depression

#54

Post by blix »

varispeed wrote: post #53

Isn't that addressing the effect of someone's depression? It's a bit like saying you have a headache because you take painkillers. If person is unhappy "screen time" is just a coping mechanism. If you take it away, then the person will find something else to numb their worries. You need to have an honest talk with yourself or a therapist to get to the bottom why you feel this way and then see how you can address it.…

Cause and coping mechanism are not mutually exclusive.

Re: Less screen time and more sleep critical for preventing depression

#55

Post by Sunspark »

blix wrote: post #44
bananabiscuit wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t it pretty obvious not all screen time is the same? If it was then you could do these studies with people staring at simple glowing white rectangles and get identical results.

If you somehow managed to convince a group of people to stare at a glowing white rectangle for 10 hours day, I would be pretty surprised if you couldn't notice any mental health effects.

After reviewing all the porn on the internet, I am no longer able to sustain an erection.

Re: Less screen time and more sleep critical for preventing depression

#56

Post by rand_r »

sradman wrote: post #15

The paper Multiple lifestyle factors and depressed mood: a cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis of the UK Biobank (N = 84,860) [1]. The study compares questionnaire results of healthy controls (HC) to people with a history of major depressive disorder (MDD): > Cross-sectional analysis of 84,860 participants showed that in both MDD and HCs, physical activity, healthy diet, and optimal sleep duration were associat…

Good point. We should ban correlational studies like these. Science is littered with these types of after-the-fact surveys that explain nothing and provide no real information. The lack of a mechanistic understanding of cause and effect in systems produces hot air, as we've seen in Psychology and other soft fields.

Re: Less screen time and more sleep critical for preventing depression

#57

Post by waterhouse »

mrweasel wrote: post #39

That could help explain why it seems like 50% of users on Reddit and Imgur suffer from depression. They’re (partly) depressed because they spend to much time the media where they write about being depressed.

The causality could also go the other way. The most visible users will be those who post a lot. And those who are depressed because their life sucks and they don't have much valuable stuff to do, or those who aren't doing much valuable stuff because their depression makes it too hard, are likely to have a lot of time during which posting on the site seems like the best available activity.

It seems really difficult to separate causality here. Which is something that disappoints me about the article. The string "caus" does not occur on the webpage; three of the four bullet points say "associated", and the only bullet point that uses a causative-sounding phrase ("were protective of") sounds like it may be used to mean another statistical association rather than an established causation. Clicking through to the study, it seems to be 100% based on association of results that they got via surveys.

Re: Less screen time and more sleep critical for preventing depression

#58

Post by falcolas »

bananabiscuit wrote: post #51
metamet wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they're all... screens. And you're spending your time looking at them, regardless of what's on them and how you interact with it. I do agree that they are different. But they're still screens.

Right, so just because this study doesn’t bother to differentiate between different things people can do with screens, you are saying it’s all the same?

Insufficient information to make a reasonable conclusion, I'm guessing.

It could very be related to what's on the screen, but it might not. Insufficient data. Screens are very new in relation to the development of human physiology, so I don't think we can assume that screens themselves are not a cause.

Re: Less screen time and more sleep critical for preventing depression

#59

Post by varispeed »

blix wrote: post #54
varispeed wrote: post #53

Isn't that addressing the effect of someone's depression? It's a bit like saying you have a headache because you take painkillers. If person is unhappy "screen time" is just a coping mechanism. If you take it away, then the person will find something else to numb their worries. You need to have an honest talk with yourself or a therapist to get to the bottom why you feel this way and then see how you can address it.…

Cause and coping mechanism are not mutually exclusive.

Yes, you can get into a feedback loop, but that needs to be talked about, not just outright dismissed.

Re: Less screen time and more sleep critical for preventing depression

#60

Post by blix »

varispeed wrote: post #59
blix wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cause and coping mechanism are not mutually exclusive.

Yes, you can get into a feedback loop, but that needs to be talked about, not just outright dismissed.

I don't feel it's dismissive at all. Yeah "rules of thumb" and correlational studies are imperfect, but I think they are better than nothing.

It's usually easier to break out of a feedback loop once you recognize that you are in one.

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