Heavy Smartphone Use Can Make You Depressed

A new study has found that addiction to — and not simply use of — mobile phones and internet is linked to anxiety and depression in teenagers.

There was no relationship between cell phone or internet use and negative mental health outcomes among participants who use these technologies to escape from boredom.

“There’s a long history of the public fearing new technologies as they are deployed in society,” said lead researcher Alejandro Lleras from University of Illinois in the US.

“This fear of new technology happened with televisions, video games and most recently, smartphones,” Lleras added in the paper published in the journal Computers in Human behavior.

The team surveyed over 300 university students with questionnaires that addressed the students’ mental health, amount of cell phone and internet use and motivations for turning to their electronic devices.

The goal was to see if addictive and self-destructive behavior with phones and the internet are related to mental health.

The findings showed that people who self-described as having really addictive style behavior toward the internet and cell phones scored much higher on depression and anxiety scales.

Breaking addictive technology habits may provide an important supplemental treatment for addressing mental health issues such as general anxiety disorder or depression, the author noted.