Media Multitasking Linked to Depression and Anxiety

Rebecca Lewis December 06, 2012

Engaging in different forms of media – such as watching TV whilst browsing the internet, and talking to someone over the phone might lead to symptoms similar to anxiety and depression – new research reveals.

For the first time, scientists have established an association between media multitasking and mental health disorders, particularly anxiety and depression. According to Mark Becker, the lead study author and an assistant professor of psychology at Michigan State University, they were surprised with their findings. However, they are not yet sure if media multitasking is causing the symptoms of anxiety and depression, or is it that people who have these mental health issues are turning to media platforms to keep themselves busy and forget about their problems.

He said even though the overall media use among American youth has increased by 20% in the past decade, the amount of time spent on media multitasking has spiked by 120% in the same period.

In a study by Ofcom, the independent regulator and competition authority for communication industries in UK, it was reported that Britons are juggling several types of media at the same time to leave enough time for everything else. On average, they spend 6.5 hours in multiple media that are supposed to consume 9.5 hours of their day.

For the study, Becker and his team interviewed 319 people about their media use and mental health. Participants were asked how many hours per week they spend on multiple media such as television, computer, video games, internet, mobile phones and music players.

The researchers also set up measures to determine the mental health of the participants even though the results do not reflect a clinical diagnosis of a disorder.

The team calls for more studies to determine if there’s a causal relationship between multiple media use and mental health problems. According to them, if future research shows that media multitasking causes anxiety or depression, measures should be made to alleviate the problem. However, if depressed or anxious people turn to media use, that might actually help them deal with the problem. It may also help parents or guardians to determine whether a youngster is having mental health issues.

Whatever the case may be, Becker says their study has important implications in understanding the negative impacts of media multitasking and how it can be minimised.

It is important to understand that our mind was not designed to multitask. However, not all types of multitasking are bad. For example, listening to a podcast while washing the dishes can be an efficient use of time, says a study by the University of Stanford. However continual media multitasking has short-term and long-term negative effects particularly in our cognitive ability. According to the British Institute of Psychiatry, checking emails while doing a creative task (writing for instance) reduces one’s IQ at that particular moment by 10 points – which is equivalent to not sleeping for 36 hours.

Becker and his team were the first to show a clear link between multiple media use and mental health, and their study was published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behaviour and Social Networking.

Source of this article:

Multiple media use tied to depression, anxiety