Does internet use improve well-being? Study suggests it does for everyone except young women

Daily use of the internet generates the same feeling of well-being as taking a walk in the park. So say Andrew Przybylski, a professor at the University of Oxford, and Matti Vuorre, from the University of Tilburg, after discovering that people with internet access were 8% more satisfied with their lives than those who did not have access to the internet. “The differences in happiness between people who go for a walk and those who don’t are of a magnitude similar to what we see at this very high level between people who go online and people who don’t,” says Vuorre. However, women between 15 and 24 years old who used the internet were less happy, according to a recent macro study published in the journal Nature.

It is the first sample to address internet access and well-being on a large scale: it analyzed internet access data for 2,414,294 people from 168 countries. “There are studies on that, but most have been small-scale in developed Western countries, usually English-speaking. This is a fairly new look,” says Matti Vuorre. Researchers took data from the Gallup GWP World Poll carried out by the analysis company Gallup, between 2006 and 2021. Respondents were asked if they had internet access at home, if they had internet access on their mobile phone and if they had used the internet in the last seven days, from a mobile phone, computer or other device.

For the study, the authors took into account eight indicators to assess “well-being”: life satisfaction, the degree of negative and positive experiences, social relationships, physical well-being, comfort in the place of residence and employee motivation. “We first queried the extent to which well-being varied as a function of internet connectivity. Then, we examined these associations’ robustness in a multiverse of 33,792 analysis specifications,” wrote the authors. “Of these, 84.9% resulted in positive and statistically significant associations between internet connectivity and well-being. These results indicate that internet access and use predict well-being positively and independently from a set of plausible alternatives.” The “multiverse” system repeatedly fitted a similar model to potentially different subgroups of the data using potentially different predictors, outcomes, and covariates in order to rule out that the associations between internet use and well-being were being caused by something else.

Cyberbullying and social media

The authors note that even though 84.9% of the associations were significantly positive, and only 0.4% were negative, “we did, however, observe a notable group of negative associations between internet use and community well-being. These negative associations were specific to young (15–24-year-old) women’s reports of community well-being.”

“Although not an identified causal relation, this finding is concordant with previous reports of increased cyberbullying and more negative associations between social media use and depressive symptoms,” adds the study, which calls for further analysis. For Andrea Vizcaíno Cuenca, a psychologist and CEO of the Spanish medical center Policlínica Maio who was not involved in the study, the problem lies in social media: “They encourage social comparison, especially among young women. Viewing carefully selected and edited images of others can lead to feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem. Constant exposure to unrealistic beauty standards for women contributes to lower emotional well-being and a negative perception of the environment.”

To measure community well-being, respondents were asked if the city in which they lived was a perfect place or if in the last 12 months they had done something to improve the area in which they lived. Girls who used the internet confessed to being less happy with the place where they lived, according to the study. Przybylski says it could be because people who don’t feel welcome in their community spend more time online.

Cyberbullying is a serious problem that “disproportionately” affects young women, says Vizcaíno: in Spain, 3% of 15-year-old girls claim to have suffered bullying at school at least two or three times a month, according to a report from the World Health Organization (WHO). Its effects can be “devastating” for mental health, such as increased levels of anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. “They can directly contribute to a negative perception of community well-being, as experiences of bullying can cause victims to feel isolated and disconnected from their community,” adds Vizcaíno. One in six adolescents suffers from cyberbullying, representing an increase from 13% to 16% among girls and 12% to 15% among boys since 2023, according to the WHO. The study calls for future research to look at whether low community well-being drives engagement with the internet or vice versa.

From internet to cinema

Although the debate between technology and well-being continues, it now seems unthinkable to live without the internet. Not everything is harmful in cyberspace and that is what the study tries to explain. Rebeca Cordero, a professor of applied sociology at the European University of Madrid, reflects on this: “We have to escape from that negative vision that the internet is something bad or harmful. A well-used tool can generate well-being.” Digital disconnection can even decrease life satisfaction, as explained in another study in November of last year. Social media offers powerful social rewards, and restricting it can reduce positive emotions.

Despite this, experts such as the health psychologist José Antonio Tamayo do not agree with the findings of the study. Tamayo underscores that the GWP Global Survey is not a psychometrically validated instrument, and that the questions are based on a definition of “well-being” unique to GWP. Additionally, respondents’ responses present risks of recall bias, social desirability or conformity, he explains. “When we talk about well-being it is a personal perception, what we do is study perceptions. I may have the feeling that what I am exposed to generates my well-being, but in reality it does not.” Tamayo also does not rule out that other factors intervene between internet use and well-being, such as income level. The study does take economic differences into account, even though “data and model selection were limited.”

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