Study finds link between impaired mental health and visiting pages with negative content on the Internet

People with impaired mental health are more likely to view negative content online, further exacerbating their symptoms, according to a study conducted by scientists at the University of California.

According to the study, published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, the link between mental health and web browsing is causal and bidirectional.

Researchers developed a plugin that allows “content tags,” reminiscent of nutrition labels on foods, to be added to web pages to help users make healthier and more informed decisions about the content they consume. These tags reflect the emotional impact of a web page’s content, as well as its practicality and informative nature.

Study co-author Professor Tali Sharot from UCL’s Department of Psychology and Linguistics, UCL’s Max Planck Center for Computational Psychiatry and Aging Research and MIT said: “Our results show that viewing negatively colored content not only reflects a person’s mood, but can actively worsen it. This creates a feedback loop that can exacerbate mental health problems over time.”

In this study, more than 1,000 participants answered questions about their mental health and shared their web browsing history with the researchers. Using natural language processing techniques, the researchers analyzed the emotional tone of the web pages the participants visited. They found that participants with low mood and symptoms of psychological unwellness tended to view more negative content online, with those who viewed more negative content feeling worse after browsing the pages.

In an additional study, researchers controlled website visits by showing negative content to some participants and neutral content to others. They found that those who viewed the negative content sites had worse moods afterward, suggesting a causal relationship between viewing negative content and mood. When these participants were then asked to browse the Internet freely, those who had previously viewed negative sites-and consequently experienced a worsening mood-chose to view more negative content. This finding emphasizes the bidirectional nature of the relationship: negative content affects mood, and mood deterioration encourages the consumption of more negative content.

The researchers stated, “The findings contribute to the ongoing discussion about the relationship between mental health and online behavior. Most studies on this relationship have focused on the amount of content used, such as screen time or frequency of social media use, leading to mixed findings. Here, however, we focused on the type of content viewed and found that its emotional tone was causally and bi-directionally related to mental health and mood.”

To see if an intervention could change web browsing choices and improve mood, the researchers conducted an additional study. They added content tags to Google search results that informed participants whether each search result would improve their mood, worsen it, or have no effect. Participants were then more likely to select positively labeled sites that they felt improved their mood; and when asked about their mood, those who viewed positive sites were actually in a better mood than other participants.

In response, the researchers developed a free browser plug-in that adds labels to Google search results, providing three different ratings: how practical the site’s content is, how informative it is, and how it affects mood.

“We’re used to seeing labels on foods with information about sugar, calorie, protein and vitamin content to help us make informed decisions about what we eat. A similar approach could be applied to the content we consume online, allowing people to make healthier choices online,” said Prof. Tali Sharot.