A study suggests that Internet use increases people’s well-being and improves life satisfaction.
Despite popular concerns to the contrary, researchers at the University of Oxford say that connecting to the Internet appears to have a very positive impact.
His comments come after analyzing data from 2 million people between 15 and 99 years old in 168 countries.
They found that life satisfaction across countries was 8.5 percent higher for those who had access to the Internet and their positive experiences were 8.3 percent higher.
Across more than 33,000 different statistical models and data subsets, the researchers found that 84.9 percent of the associations between Internet connectivity and well-being were positive.
Professor Andrew Przybylski (pictured) from the Oxford Internet Institute has found that the Internet improves people’s well-being.
Andrew Przybylski, professor of human behavior and technology at the Oxford Internet Institute, said: “Overall, we found that the average associations were consistent between predictors of Internet adoption and well-being outcomes, and those who had access to the Internet or did not. who actively used reported significantly greater well-being than those who did not.
“We hope our findings provide more context to the debate about screen time, however, more work is still needed in this important area.”
He added that he believed there would come a time when people would no longer be worried about social media and internet use among young people because they would be worried about the next thing that comes up.
Assistant Professor Matti Vuorre of Tilburg University and former research associate at the OII, said: “We were surprised to find a positive correlation between well-being and Internet use in most of the thousands of models we used for our analysis.”
In the study, well-being was measured according to eight indicators: life satisfaction, negative and positive daily experiences, two measures of social well-being (well-being linked to liking where you live and feeling safe there), physical well-being, community well-being and experiences of purpose.
Factors such as education, income and health were also taken into account, although the study did not look at social media use.
Despite popular concern to the contrary, researchers have found that connecting to the Internet appears to have a very positive impact.
In the study, published in the American Psychological Association’s journal Technology, Mind and Behavior, researchers used data from the Gallup World Poll of 2,414,294 people from 168 countries, between 2006 and 2021.
The survey assessed well-being with face-to-face and telephone surveys that included questions such as “Does your household have Internet access?” and asked about positive or negative experiences and satisfaction with life.
While the associations between Internet access and use in the average country were consistently positive, the researchers found some variation by gender and well-being.
They found that 4.9 percent of the associations linking Internet use and community well-being were negative, and the majority of these were observed among women ages 15 to 24.
Professor Przybylski said: “It’s a bit cliché, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
‘And if we want to make the online world safer for young people, we simply can’t shoot with strong prior beliefs and one-size-fits-all solutions.
“We really need to make sure we’re sensitive to data changing our minds, and I really hope that message gets through instead of just another broadside, in another silly debate.”