Thread by @FSobbrio

Are you concerned or simply wondering about the impact of the internet on mental health? Check out the latest version of “Lost in the Net? Broadband Internet and Youth Mental Health” joint with @DonatiDante @RDurante_2020 and Dijana Zejcirovic #mentalhealth #econtwitter 1/n

We present new evidence based on Italian administrative data on the universe of mental disorders diagnosed by hospital doctors between 2001-2013 to patients below 40 years of age, which we combine with granular info on access to broadband internet at the municipality level. 2/n

Our identification strategy exploits differences in the proximity of municipalities to the pre-existing voice telecommunication infrastructure, which was previously irrelevant but became salient after the advent of the internet (Campante, Durante & Sobbrio, 2018) 3/n

🚨 We document that broadband internet has: 1) a null effect for older cohorts (1974-1984); 2) a harmful impact on the incidence of various mental disorders for younger cohorts (1985-1995) 4/n

For the younger cohorts, high-speed internet access is associated with an increase in diagnoses of depression, anxiety, drug abuse, and personality disorders-- for both males and females - and of eating and sleep disorders - for females only. 5/n

👩‍⚕️ The effect is rather sizeable, with a 10 percentage point increase in access to ADSL associated with a 3.7 percentage point increase in the probability of a case of depression/anxiety being diagnosed among males. 6/n

Our rich data allow us to explore whether the effect we document is driven by a mere increase in awareness or also by an actual change in the prevalence of mental disorders. 7/n

We find that access to high-speed internet is also associated with an increase in the probability of i) suicide attempts & episodes of self-harm; ii) compulsory hospitalizations due to a threat to the patient or others; iii) urgent hospitalizations. 8/n

Unlike for milder disorders, finding an effect on such extreme outcomes can hardly be explained by better access to mental health information. 9/n

Our paper offers several key contributions to the existing literature. First, by studying how internet access affects mental health for children, teenagers & young adults. This is important since pre-college cohorts may be especially vulnerable to the effect of internet. 10/n

Second, we look at a broad spectrum of disorders and types of hospitalizations and at different segments of the population. Such disaggregated results may contribute to the design of targeted policy interventions. 11/n

Third, the use of data on doctors' diagnoses strengthens the internal and external validity of our findings (compared with studies based on self-reported data, which are harder to compare across time and space and are more likely to suffer from measurement error) 12/n

Finally, our analysis focuses on an early period of high-speed internet, when the use of social media was limited. In this regard, our findings provide evidence that other online activities, beyond social media, can also have significant implications for mental health. 13/n

🔎 Although our analysis remains agnostic on the mechanisms, our results suggest that the internet can pose a risk to the mental health of youths, e.g., by exposing them to cyberbullying, social media addiction, and unrealistic beauty standards, among other negative effects 14/n

As internet-enabled technologies continue to grow, it is crucial to prioritize the promotion of healthy internet habits and to educate individuals, particularly youths, on the potential risks to their mental health. 15/n

Links to paper (first version March 2022): cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_…
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf… 16/n

You can also look at the accompanying webcast interview with Dijana on VoxEU cepr.org/voxeu/vox-webc… #mentalhealth #econtwitter n/n