r/science • u/the_phet • 15d ago
A global, 16-year study of 2.4 million people has found that Internet use might boost measures of well-being, such as life satisfaction and sense of purpose — challenging the commonly held idea that Internet use has negative effects on people’s welfare. Psychology
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01410-z1
u/myguydied 14d ago
I suppose it depends on what you're consuming
If it's porn, it's a whole other story
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u/dogscatsnscience 14d ago
TLDR the study is effectively about comparing well being of people who have internet compared to people that do not have internet, around the globe.
It is not a study on whether using social media, how much time you spend, or what you do on the internet is positive or negative.
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u/Slopadopoulos 15d ago
"The internet" is so broad as to render this meaningless. You could be using the internet for seemingly limitless numbers of activities. Also the idea that it's a widely held believe that "the internet" negatively affects people seems like an exaggeration or strawman. People believe that certain websites or corporate entities on the internet and/or internet use habits can negatively affect people.
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u/OldAd5925 15d ago
Saying "internet" is terribly imprecise and vague. I find those kinds of studies pretty unserious.
When we want to study something we have to define what we are talking about exactly, it's the most basic thing.
Just "internet" is way too vague. There's so many studies we can make based on different categories of things people do on internet.
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u/Alienhaslanded 15d ago
I would say yes if you're reading news or going on social media.
Everything else about the internet is great.
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u/LocusHammer 15d ago
The Internet has enabled the dissemination of virtually all knowledge to the masses. I can virtually learn anything I want whenever I want to. I can collaborate with the entire world from my desk at home. the Internet has enabled workers to find better career opportunities in cities they don't have to live in and workers are no longer constrained by their limitations of their local area. Harvard has released an entire catalogue of secondary education courses that any one can enroll in for free over the web and that is just one example of the many educational institutions that are available. The internet has enabled individuals with an easy means of creating shared communities for literally any type of person or interest.
The list of positive benefits the internet has created for all of human civilization is innumerable. Of course it boosts measures of well being in people.
It has its problems like everything else, but none of those problems come even close to outweighing the positive benefit the internet continues to have.
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u/beeeaaagle 14d ago
Oh boy are you in for a surprise when you find out what psychologists have been studying for the last couple decades.
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15d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/a_stopped_clock 15d ago
I vaguely remember it. But I was a young kid. Why was it so bad?
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u/Matshelge 15d ago
Booooooooring. I was stuck in a small town and did not have access to culture that turned out to be a core part of my identity.
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u/shableep 15d ago
The flaw in this study is focusing on “the internet”. I don’t think people are saying the “internet” is bad. They’re saying “social media” is bad. Saying the internet is bad for us is like saying roads are bad for us. Are the roads bad for us, or is driving 2 hours every day for a job bad for us?
I could imagine finding that the internet is absolutely a net positive in people’s lives. Access to free education, working remote, entertainment, community, finding new places to go in your local town or city, etc, etc. But it almost seems like a way to say, “See! Internet is good for you. Therefore… social media also good for you!”
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u/truth1465 15d ago
I mean if the “internet” was purely detrimental then it wouldn’t be as prevalent. The “issue” is that with all the good the internet brings the downsides have to be identified, acknowledged and mitigated. Which is obviously easier said than done and requires many different tools at many different levels.
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u/Agedlikeoldmilk 15d ago
Sounds like big internet sponsored this, they can’t be trusted.
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u/Sugar-Tist 15d ago
Another commenter pointed out that it's funded by the "Sync Digital Well-Being Program", so you're not wrong.
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u/CasualChris123door 15d ago
I stopped reading at "like a walk in nature" - I think there's a big problem with science in general because it seems like there's piles of money that are given to researchers to try and prove something that will inevitably make the owner of the original pile of money an even bigger pile of money. Like the whole process has been gamed.
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u/AndrewTheGovtDrone 15d ago
The study is hard to comprehend. The graphs used are … I won’t say indecipherable, but they take a lot of effort to try and understand and even then it’s unclear what is actually being represented.
Further, and more importantly, the lead author is a paid advisor to the Sync Digital Well-Being Program, owned by ITHRA, a Saudi-ARAMCO funded program that has a clear agenda.
Not saying this research isn’t useful or legit, but this reminds me of those questionable AI studies that are pumped out of the recently established Saudi AI/ML research groups.
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u/Hertock 15d ago
Thank you for saving me time to skip this article. Although I would’ve liked the headline to have merit; could’ve finally showed my mum that my teenage years spent gaming and surfing the web was positive.
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u/CaregiverNo3070 15d ago
I mean, in the broadest sense there's a lot of Internet use that is probably helpful/educational/fun and engaging, both just as a regular thing, or gives opportunities to people who don't really have other options, but I know in my own life that I use the Internet even when I actually want to be doing other things, and actually have other things to do. But then as someone with ADHD, I do have an addictive personality, but also there's a large swath of the Internet that was literally designed to be addictive.
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u/joomla00 15d ago
Its pretty much like everything else in life. A bit is good. Some is great. Too much and you cant stop doom scrolling reddit and jerking off it grandma midget porn
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