Connecting the dots: Are you always highly stressed, in a bad mood, and find you don't spend as much time on enjoyable activities as you used to? Most people would probably say that's just the world we live in, but a new study links many of these problems to excessive time spent online.
Researchers led by the University of Duisburg-Essen studied 900 German adults, with data collected between October 2021 and August 2024. All had engaged in gaming, pornography use, social networking, or online shopping at least occasionally during the previous year.
The participants' internet use was labelled pathological, risky, or non-problematic following a diagnostic interview. If excessive use of online applications reached the point of causing significant distress or disrupting daily life, it was classified as problematic, covering the risky and pathological groups.
Participants completed an assessment every evening for two weeks, reporting their mood and stress levels, temptation to engage in their designated online activity, and how long they spent doing it. The assessment also measured how much pleasure or relief they derived from internet use and whether other activities were neglected.
Those with more severe problematic internet use reported worse moods, greater stress, longer usage times, and more neglect of other parts of their lives. The strongest predictor of whether someone would engage in their designated activity on a given day wasn't stress or mood but temptation.
"More than actual stress or mood alone, it is the momentary urge to go online that determines whether people engage in online activities and experience both rewarding and harmful consequences," said study co-author Andreas Oelker.
Back in 2023, an Oxford Internet Institute study involving 2.4 million people found no clear link between internet use and worse mental health. However, that investigation examined population-level trends rather than people whose usage was causing distress or disrupting their lives. That same study also showed that internet access and use can actually contribute to greater well-being.
A 2024 analysis examined brain-imaging research involving adolescents with internet addiction. It reported differences in functional connectivity in brain regions linked to executive functions, including memory and decision-making. However, the review comprised only 12 studies, all conducted in Asian countries, as well as just 237 participants.
The latest study found that days involving stronger temptation also brought more time online, more pleasure and relief, and more neglect. Those rewarding feelings could reinforce the behaviour and make the urge harder to resist, with negative effects amplified among participants with more severe symptoms.
There were some important caveats. The observational study found associations and can't establish whether problematic internet use directly caused the worse mood or stress. The participants were mostly young adults and were deliberately recruited across different severity groups, meaning the sample was not representative of the wider population. The results also relied on self-reporting, while collecting answers once each evening made it difficult to establish the exact sequence of events.
"We'd like to note that only a small percentage of internet users develop pathological use patterns," said co-author Silke M. Müller.
The researchers suggest that helping people recognize and manage moments of temptation could prove more effective than focusing on mood or stress alone.
