[HN Gopher] Depression alters the circadian pattern of online ac...
___________________________________________________________________
Depression alters the circadian pattern of online activity
Author : giuliomagnifico
Score : 43 points
Date : 2022-01-01 19:22 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| Interesting article but it relies primarily on people posting on
| Twitter that they have been diagnosed with depression. I have to
| wonder how many people with depression actually do this, and
| whether this ends up producing a rather unique and self-selected
| group who's social media habits may not necessarily represent the
| "norm".
|
| And this from the introduction seems to be a bit of a simplistic
| conclusion:
|
| > These results suggest that diagnosis and treatment of
| depression may focus on modifying the timing of activity,
| reducing rumination, and decreasing social media use at specific
| hours of the day.
|
| I find this odd partly because the three things listed here are
| "actions" and don't seem to contribute to "diagnosis". I assume
| they meant that late night social media use may be symptomatic of
| depression but they don't seem to actually say that (nor does
| this seem to be a strong conclusion to draw from this particular
| study?)
|
| Secondly, it's well known that reducing rumination is an
| effective treatment for depression and that's one of the things
| that CBT interventions help to tackle.
|
| So this leaves us with "modifying the timing of activity and
| decreasing social media use at specific hours of the day" (which
| appear to be the same thing).
|
| Now there is likely something in this. Eg Trying to break bad
| late-night habits of reading social media instead of sleeping,
| but I'd also argue that this is more of a symptom of depression
| rather than a cause (though it's definitely a vicious circle).
|
| Perhaps I've just got my cynical hat on. I have to admit I
| haven't read the entire paper so perhaps it's just the intro that
| doesn't do the best job of summarising the results. (Or I'm not
| being charitable enough in my reading of it).
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| ineedasername wrote:
| It seems to imply a reversal of the cause-effect relationship
| that some people may experience:
|
| I don't doubt that poor sleep habits can contribute to depression
| and help bring on a bout of it all on its own. However, my
| experience is the opposite. Depression severely reduces my
| ability to sleep. What sleep I get is restless and filled with
| intrusive thoughts. In the internet age, it does not surprise me
| that many people in this situation would turn to internet usage
| in this situation to occupy their minds rather than lay miserably
| in the dark drifting in & out. With or without that internet
| activity, this becomes a downward spiral:
|
| --depressed [?] can't sleep.
|
| --Sleep deprivation [?] worsened depression
|
| --worse depression [?] worse sleep
|
| I'm sure the often toxic nature of social media only makes this
| worse, and also that the short-term relief from inner ruminations
| through internet distractions also just makes the sleep
| deprivation worse as well.
|
| When depression [?] can't sleep (rather than the inverse, which
| also happens) is the causal chain, treating the symptoms of poor
| sleep or late-night internet usage won't help quite so much with
| the underlying cause: depression itself. But this article
| unfortunately seems to focus on that line of treatment, e.g.,
| with CBT. However I do not mean to discount the information in
| this study: It demonstrates some very useful knowledge as well. I
| would simply have liked them to have explored the topic of
| whether late-night activity preceded depression or not. Although
| early warning signs can progress slowly & subtly to the point
| where it may not always be clear.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Depression has a lot of other negative reinforcement loops. A
| few examples:
|
| Pessimism about other people's thoughts about you -> Expressed
| cynicism and negativity towards friends about themselves ->
| Actual, provoked negative thoughts -> Reinforcement for
| pessimism.
|
| Feeling like effort is pointless -> reduced effort -> fewer
| examples of effort succeeding -> reinforcement that effort is
| pointless.
|
| Feeling unhealthy -> lacking energy -> insufficient self-care
| -> becoming less healthy.
|
| I think people will come to see depression as a pit in the
| vast, multidimensional state space of the psyche, that can be
| approached from an infinite number of directions, and whose
| mechanism is the random overlapping of thousands of
| reinforcement cycles, which happen to reinforce the same thing
| at that one specific point.
| csee wrote:
| "Compared to the control group, depressed subjects were
| significantly more active from 7 PM to midnight and _less active
| from 3 to 6 AM_. "
| ipnon wrote:
| We must wake up before dawn and surf the web then.
| tinyhouse wrote:
| Yeah, I read the abstract and also didn't get this part.
| watwut wrote:
| Would this suggest that depressed people pull less all
| nighters?
| kjaftaedi wrote:
| It seems to suggest that non-depressed people are more active
| from 3-6am, which is strange because the vast majority of
| people are not active during these times.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| There's also those studies that indicate prolonged sleep
| deprivation might help reduce depression. Maybe after a long
| stint of wakefulness, in the wee hours the depressed shift
| back to being non-depressed!
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-01-01 23:01 UTC)