Internet addiction and depression

A study out last year from the journal Psychopathology found a relationship between excessive Internet use and depression. It was based on an online questionnaire sent to 1319 respondents. Here are some selected portions of the abstract (my bold):

There is a growing awareness of a psychiatric construct that needs to be better defined and understood: Internet addiction (IA)...

Three scales were included: the IA Test, the Internet Function Questionnaire and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). 1,319 respondents completed the questionnaires, with 18 (1.2%) identified as falling in the IA category...

Across the whole data sample, there was a close relationship between IA tendencies and depression, such that IA respondents were more depressed; there were also significant differences between the sexes, with men showing more addictive tendencies than women. In addition, young people were significantly more likely to show addictive symptoms than were older people. There was a significant difference between the IA and the NA group in their levels of depressive symptoms, with the NA group firmly in the non-depressed range, and the IA group in the moderately-to-severely depressed range (F1, 34 = 22.35; p less than 0.001). In terms of the function for which they used the Internet, the IA group engaged significantly more than the NA group in sexually gratifying websites, gaming websites and online community/chat websites...

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