Replacing face-to-face contact with friends and family with emails, text messages and phone calls could double the risk of depression, a major study suggests.
Research on 11,000 adults found that those who meet friends and family at least three times a week are far less likely to suffer from depression.
Individuals who had such contact just once every few months had an 11.5 per cent chance of later suffering from depressive symptoms two years later.
By contrast, those who met up with family and friends at least three times a week had the lowest level of depressive symptoms, with rates of 6.5 per cent.
The study by the University of Michigan, published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, is the first to examine the impact of different types of social contact on depression.
Adults aged 50 and over were tracked for more than two years. While strong links were found between face-to-face contact and depression, regularity of contact with loved-ones by telephone, email or social media was shown to make no difference.
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What the hell are they gonna study next?
ReplyDeletePeople need people contact, in varying degrees. No man is an island, or at least, one that can fully and healthily function.
ReplyDeleteIs there a link between the high suicide rate and the growing addiction to 'screen time'?
ReplyDeleteI'd say so.. sounds like this study would support that idea.
Screen junkies need to get some help.
And parents need to start thinking about what they're doing to their kids by giving them 'smartphones'.. especially when they're toddlers.