Is Being Addicted to the Internet Linked to Depression?

Researchers at the University of Leeds have discovered that spending a lot of time surfing the internet is strongly linked to depression.  They questioned around 1300 people between the ages of 16 and 51 to look at their dependency on the internet and how depressed they were.

In general, they found that the longer people spent online the more depressed people tended to be.  One of the reasons put forward for the internet addiction was that surfing the net was a substitute for more normal social activities.  Although the research proved that there was a correlation between internet addiction and depression, the researchers don't know which comes first.  Does the depression occur due to the amount of time spent on the net, or are depressed people more likely to spend hours internet surfing?

Read the whole news article on depression and internet addiction