[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)