Oxford study suggests internet use may be good for wellbeing

The findings suggest that despite popular concerns to the contrary, the association between internet use and wellbeing is likely to be positive.

Researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute, part of the University of Oxford, analysed data from two million people aged 15 to 99 in 168 countries, including Latin America, Asia and Africa.

READ MORE: Oxford council house mould causes single mum's sickness

They found that life satisfaction across all countries was 8.5 per cent higher for those who had access to the internet and their positive experiences were 8.3 per cent higher.

The researchers found that 84.9 per cent of associations between internet connectivity and wellbeing were positive.

Andrew Przybylski, professor of human behaviour and technology at the Oxford Internet Institute, said: “It’s a bit cliche, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

“And if we’re to make the online world safer for young people, we just can’t go in guns blazing with strong prior beliefs and one-size-fits-all solutions.

“We really need to make sure that we’re sensitive to having our minds changed by data, and I really hope that that message comes through instead of just another volley, in another silly debate."

READ MORE: Abingdon Air & Country Show is postponed with a week to go

Assistant professor Matti Vuorre from Tilburg University, and previous research associate at Oxford Internet Institute, said: “We were surprised to find a positive correlation between wellbeing and internet use across the majority of the thousands of models we used for our analysis.”

In the study, wellbeing was measured according to eight indicators, which included life satisfaction, daily negative and positive experiences, and physical wellbeing.

Factors such as education and health were also taken into consideration, however, the study did not look at social media use.

Prof Przybylski said: “Overall we found that average associations were consistent across internet adoption predictors and wellbeing outcomes, with those who had access to or actively used the internet reporting meaningfully greater wellbeing than those who did not.

“We hope our findings bring some greater context to the screen time debate, however further work is still needed in this important area.

“We urge platform providers to share their detailed data on user behaviour with social scientists working in this field for transparent and independent scientific enquiry, to enable a more comprehensive understanding of internet technologies in our daily lives.”

READ MORE: Kaleb Cooper set to make appearance at rally near Bicester

Whilst the associations between internet access and use for the average country were consistently positive, the researchers did find some variation by gender and wellbeing.

They found that 4.9 per cent of associations linking internet use and community wellbeing were negative, with most of those observed among women aged 15 to 24 years old.