"OTHER characteristic features of “depressive” Internet behavior included increased amounts of video watching, gaming and chatting."
So what uses of the internet would NOT indicate depression??
How Depressives Surf the Web
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Re: How Depressives Surf the Web
#22I was shocked that they threw in the part about developing an application to alert people that they may be depressed. This is the one amd only study on this and they have the nerve to pitch a software idea at the end? Honestly, at this point using their application to detect early signs of depression is like going to a phrenologist or getting your palms read - and taking it seriously. There needs to be more studies with reproducible results. What ever happened to science?
Re: How Depressives Surf the Web
#23For that depression that is environmental, and caused by factors like stress, isolation and boredom, the internet would be a welcome salve. Engagement on facebook and HN reduce isolation and boredom.
Re: How Depressives Surf the Web
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also in the past we have learned that there is many times a huge gap between how a technology could be used and how it actually ends up being used.
Totally; some companies may use it to identify depressed employees just to fire them (because they think depressed people is less efficient).
yes, I can't wait for the first company that fires people who "tended to engage in very high e-mail usage.". Although high p2p usage at work may be a reasonable excuse for firing :)
Re: How Depressives Surf the Web
#25I'm not sure the researchers are giving enough credence to the idea that the depressive's very next click might finally reveal the secret to happiness and fulfillment. I mean, it might? Right? RIGHT?
Re: How Depressives Surf the Web
#26Well, this article started interesting, and ended in a somewhat scary proposal that universities log students' internet usage and data-mine it using robo-depression-screening software that would report them to counselors. The caveat ("raises privacy concerns that would have to be addressed") does not really reassure me... My hope is that's just a cynical eye-on-funding thing thrown in, and the researchers are really…
It would be simple to create a program to log the usage and recommend the user seek counselling, without having to log thousands of peoples internet usage.
I don't get why 1) everyone has to be HAPPY, and 2) why the high ups seem so intent on making sure we're HAPPY.
Here's reality: life can be utterly fucking shitty. People get depressed. Then you get over it and life goes on and eventually someone will die, or your S.O. will dump your ass and you'll get depressed again. Then you get over it.
Fund proper counselling problems to reach out to kids at high risk of suicide and stop giving a shit if everyone is happy. 99.9% of depressed people aren't going to lynch themselves otherwise there wouldn't be a human race.
A very slim number of people get depressed and try to commit suicide. Normally there are a shit ton of signs that everyone around them ignore. If everyone around them actually paid attention to these depressed people before they became suicidal, you'd cut the suicide rate to 1 in 1000 of what it is right now.
Re: How Depressives Surf the Web
#27P2P? Oh, you must be depressed. Use the internet more often or leave your computer on? Depressed! Tend to surf the web and a variety of sites? How haven't you killed yourself by now?
How haven't you killed yourself by now? Lack of opportunity? It turns out thinking hard that "I wish I were dead." is not actually lethal? Because this is a bullshit study and a lot of the measures are things I correlate with high IQ and boredom?
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Re: How Depressives Surf the Web
#28Admittedly this article a high-level overview, but I see a lot of hand-waving use of statistical terms. For example, how is “30 percent of the participants met the criteria for depressive symptoms” in line with “10 to 40 percent of college students at some point experience such symptoms”. It’s not: 30% have depressive symptoms now vs 10% having symptoms at some point? One of those two numbers is way off, or they are…
Here's a pdf of the paper: http://web.mst.edu/~chellaps/papers/12_tech-soc_kcmwl.pdf It's interesting seeing my alma mater show up here. I wouldn't be surprised if Rolla students exhibited a higher rate of depression than the norm. Having spent 4 years there, I knew a lot of people that were bitter about being there. It's a small state engineering school in the middle of nowhere, without any particular pedigree or no…
That's a major problem with many (maybe even most) psych studies. I don't think anyone who's thought about it at length really thinks these kinds of populations of convenience ("recruited N students at my university") are a good way to do science, but they are... convenient, so they keep getting used. At some schools, psych students have to participate in a certain number of studies for credit, which makes it easier to get participants, while likely further biasing the participant pool.
It's part of the traditional split between quantitative and qualitative psychologists (and sociologists), each of whom gets one side of the equation stronger. The qualitative side typically goes "out into the world" and tries to interview a target community, building an understanding and iterating to fill in gaps in the understanding. They often succeed in quite good coverage, but don't produce statistical results. The quantitative side typically wants to measure statistically significant results on pre-specified, narrower questions, but often does so only on populations on convenience, rather than going "out into the world" and really understanding the populations that are out there.
Re: How Depressives Surf the Web
#29Fascinating stuff. Just today I was looking at the 30-40 tabs I bring up each time I start Chrome and I was wondering: doest having all this data in front of me help me remember to do various internet chores? Or does it get in the way? Better still, is it a sign I'm actually experiencing some other condition that shows itself in my context-switching? I think there's something to this. Having said that, I found this w…
Having too many tabs open at one time can definitely hurt my concentration. I can remember multiple times in the last few weeks when I just wanted to look up some specific information or send a single email, but upon switching back to Chrome, ended up answering other emails in my inbox or looking at tabs I had left open with articles that I wanted to read.
I've started making sure I use an app (Pocket) to keep track of articles so I can close the browser tab immediately and read one article at a time exclusively, and on my schedule (e.g. sitting in a taxi or on the subway). For emails, I guess I should write them in a text editor before switching to GMail, so I just have to copy, paste, send.
Re: How Depressives Surf the Web
#30[deleted]