Frequent internet use by older people during lockdown linked to mental health benefits
2021-04-22
(Press-News.org) A new study from the University of Surrey has found that among people aged 55 to 75 more frequent use of the internet was beneficial for mental health and quality of life under lockdown. Those who used the internet more, particularly for staying in touch with friends and family, were at lower risk of depression and reported a higher quality of life.
Loneliness and social isolation have been major problems for many under lockdown, and for older people in particular. Loneliness raises risk of depression and other negative health outcomes. In a paper published in the journal Healthcare, researchers from Surrey investigated whether more frequent internet use in older people helped reduce this risk.
Researchers studied 3,491 individual participants drawn from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing in Summer 2020, whilst social distancing measures were in place across the country. Participants were surveyed on the frequency and type of their internet usage - such as information searching or for communication purposes.
Those who reported using the internet frequently (once a day or more) had much lower levels of depression symptoms and reported higher quality of life compared to those who used the internet only once a week or less. Using the internet for communication was particularly linked to these beneficial effects, suggesting that going online to stay connected with friends and family helped combat the negative psychological effects of social distancing and lockdown in adults aged 55-75.
Conversely, the study found that people who mostly used the internet to search for health-related information reported higher levels of depression symptoms. This might be due to a greater degree of worry triggered by reading Covid-19 and other health-related internet sources.
Dr Simon Evans, Lecturer in Neuroscience at the University of Surrey, said: "As social restrictions continue during the Covid-19 pandemic, older people are at greater risk of loneliness and mental health issues. We found that older adults who used the internet more frequently under lockdown, particularly to communicate with others, had lower depression scores and an enhanced quality of life. As the Covid-19 situation evolves, more frequent internet use could benefit the mental health of older people by reducing loneliness and risk of depression, particularly if further lockdowns are imposed in the future."
INFORMATION:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2021-04-22
Australia's unique and highly endemic flora and fauna are threatened by rapid losses in biodiversity and ecosystem health, caused by human influence and environmental challenges. To monitor and respond to these trends, scientists and policy-makers need reliable data.
Biodiversity researchers and managers often don't have the necessary information, or access to it, to tackle some of the greatest environmental challenges facing society, such as biodiversity loss or climate change. Data can be a powerful tool for the development of science and decision-making, which is where the END ...
2021-04-22
Rain is a common phenomenon on Earth. There is a similar phenomenon on the Sun, called coronal rain. It is related to the coronal heating and magnetic field, and plays a fundamental role in the mass cycle between the hot, tenuous corona and the cool, dense chromosphere.
Coronal rain usually takes place in post-flare loops and the non-flaring active region coronal loops. It is generally classified into two categories: flare-driven and quiescent coronal rain, depending on its relation to the flare. Both kinds of coronal rain form along structures that are magnetically ...
2021-04-22
Understanding whether Mars was once able to support life has been a major driving force for Mars research over the past 50 years. To decipher the planet's ancient climate and habitability, researchers look to the rock record - a physical record of ancient surface processes which reflect the environment and the prevailing climate at the time the rocks were deposited.
In a new paper published in JGR: Planets, researchers on the NASA-JPL Mars Science Laboratory mission used the Curiosity rover to add another piece to the puzzle of Mars' ancient past by investigating a unit of rocks within Gale crater.
They found evidence of an ancient dune field preserved as a layer of rocks in Gale crater, which overlies rock layers that were deposited in a large lake. The rock ...
2021-04-22
Thursday, 22 April 2021 - New research has found that childhood adversity, such as parental conflict, death of a close family member or serious injury, before the age of nine was associated with mental health problems in late adolescence.
However, the research also shows that improving the relationship between parents and children could prevent subsequent mental health problems, even in children who have experienced severe adversities. The research also indicated that improving a child's self-esteem and increasing their levels of physical activity can help to reduce the risk of developing mental health problems.
The study, led by researchers from RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences, is recently published in END ...
2021-04-22
NUST MISIS scientists together with Indian colleagues from Jain University and Sri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara College presented innovative membranes for the complete removal of heavy metals from industrial wastewater. The special nanostructure of zinc-modified aluminum oxide made it possible to remove arsenic and lead from water with an efficiency of 87% and 98%, respectively. The results of the work were published in the Chemosphere journal.
Industrialization is the main cause of water pollution due to the ingress of industrial waste. In particular, heavy metals -- arsenic, lead and cadmium -- can cause metabolic disorders and multiple critical effects to the body, ...
2021-04-22
Two-dimensional (2D) materials with a single-layer thickness retaining magnetic order in atomically thin limit began to increase their scientific and technological significance after the successful synthesis of graphene and later investigations of van der Waals materials. CrBr3 has been known since the 60s as a van der Waals ferromagnet. Hansen, Tsubokawa, and Dillon have pioneered the work on magnetism in this compound. However, it has only recently been established that CrBr3 exhibits ferromagnetism when exfoliating to several layers and monolayers while ...
2021-04-22
The design, interpretation, and enforcement of county and municipal laws significantly affect local public health. But accessing those laws can be difficult.
A study by Indiana University researchers found that unlike Indiana state laws, which are collected, catalogued by topic, and kept regularly updated in centralized, publicly available electronic databases, laws in about half of all Indiana counties were not online, or if they were online, they weren't necessarily up to date. This means that in Indiana, there is no comprehensive, up-to-date central source that can be used to study how different local governments respond to similar health-related ...
2021-04-22
A small proportion of women who receive anti-estrogen treatment after breast cancer surgery have worse outcomes. This is associated with mutations in the estrogen receptor gene, according to a study from Lund University now published in JNCI Cancer Spectrum.
"If our results are confirmed in further studies, it would be relevant to screen for these resistance mutations already at diagnosis, and then consider other treatment options that could work better for patients with mutated tumors," says Lao Saal, who led the study, the largest of its kind on resistance mutations in the estrogen receptor in primary breast cancer.
Breast cancer is the most common ...
2021-04-22
Inspired by nature, the researchers developing a new load-bearing material
Engineers have developed a new material that mimics human cartilage - the body's shock absorbing and lubrication system, and it could herald the development of a new generation of lightweight bearings.
Cartilage is a soft fibrous tissue found around joints which provides protection from the compressive loading generated by walking, running or lifting. It also provides a protective, lubricating layer allowing bones to pass over one another in a frictionless way. For years, scientists have been trying to create a synthetic material with the properties of cartilage. ...
2021-04-22
Several weeks following the publication of the large real-world Covid-19 vaccine effectiveness study by the Clalit Research Institute in Collaboration with Harvard University in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), additional results focusing on vaccine effectiveness in specific sub-populations have now been published.
While the original publication demonstrated the effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine in the general population, outstanding questions remained regarding vaccine effectiveness in specific sub-populations of interest, including the elderly, multi-morbid ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Frequent internet use by older people during lockdown linked to mental health benefits
