Scientists at University College London (UCL) have found that people with poor mental health are not only more likely to search for negative information on the Internet, but are also more likely to experience depression after such information.
Oku.Az it is reported with reference to Gazeta.ru.
More than a thousand people participated in the investigation. In the first stage, participants underwent psychological tests to assess their mental health status. The volunteers were then asked to browse Internet content for 30 minutes, after which they took another test and revealed their search history to the researchers.
The results showed that people with the lowest mental health scores were more likely to visit websites with negative topics.
The next experiment aims to determine whether this trend is cause or effect. Scientists have tried to find out whether the culprit for the growing interest in negative materials is the sites themselves or the mental state of the participants.
Participants were divided into two groups: one group watched positive content and the other focused on “bad news.” The results showed that after learning scary or depressing information, many participants couldn’t stop: they started searching for darker content online. At the same time, people with a weak psyche felt more emotionally exhausted after such actions.
