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This age of the internet has provided people with a lot of insights into technology, both positive and negative. Although years of research have told internet users that it is harmful to their mental health, a new study says that there is no link between the two.

While it has advantages and disadvantages, the internet has a bad reputation from several studies saying that it is associated with depressive symptoms, anxiety, loneliness and other mental health issues. Similarly, the use of social media has been linked to poor mental health.

No smoking gun link between tech and mental health

Contrary to what has been previously published, in a recent study published by the Oxford Internet Institute, researchers claim that after studying data from the past two decades, evidence supporting that the internet is harmful to psychological well-being is little, at the most. This involved the examination of data from two million individuals of a wide age range from 15 to 89 in 168 countries. 

Professor of human behavior and technology Andrew Przybylski explained that during the study, they tried hard to look for a "smoking gun" linking technology and well-being. However, they did not find it.

This was supported by experimental psychologist and data scientist Dr. Matti Vuorre who said that they looked carefully at factors such as time and population demographics and found small and inconsistent results.

The team also looked at other demographics like gender and age group, but they were not successful in finding any practical significant association.

The researchers said that to come to a conclusion, technology companies and online platforms need to be more transparent with their data.