The relationship between self-report of depression and media usage

Abstract

Depression is a debilitating condition that adversely affects many aspects of a person's life and general health. Earlier work has supported the idea that there may be a relationship between the use of certain media and depression. In this study, we tested if self-report of depression (SRD), which is not a clinically based diagnosis, was associated with increased internet, television, and social media usage by using data collected in the Media Behavior and Influence Study (MBIS) database (N = 19,776 subjects). We further assessed the relationship of demographic variables to this association. These analyses found that SRD rates were in the range of published rates of clinically diagnosed major depression. It found that those who tended to use more media also tended to be more depressed, and that segmentation of SRD subjects was weighted toward internet and television usage, which was not the case with non-SRD subjects, who were segmented along social media use. This study found that those who have suffered either economic or physical life setbacks are orders of magnitude more likely to be depressed, even without disproportionately high levels of media use. However, among those that have suffered major life setbacks, high media users-particularly television watchers-were even more likely to report experiencing depression, which suggests that these effects were not just due to individuals having more time for media consumption. These findings provide an example of how Big Data can be used for medical and mental health research, helping to elucidate issues not traditionally tested in the fields of psychiatry or experimental psychology.

Keywords: big data; depression; marketing communications; media use.

Figure 1

Rates of Self-Reported Depression by State, December 2012. This infographic characterizes rates of self-reported depression by state, with darker states showing greater rates of depression. The image demonstrates few patterns in depression by geography, with perhaps the exception that state with large metropolitan areas tend to show somewhat less depression.

Figure 2

Trends in MBIS Rates of Self-Reported Depression in Adults (18+), June 2009–December 2012. This chart reports the rate of self-reported depression every 6 months, beginning in June 2009 and ending in December 2012, fitted with a linear trend line. All data was collected the same way by BIGinsight of Ohio as part of the MBIS study.

Figure 3

MBIS Rates of Depression by Media Use Quintiles, December 2012. This chart demonstrates the percent of subjects with depression in each media quintile. Quintiles were determined by ordering subjects based on estimated minutes of a given media consumed; the first 1/5 used the least of a given media and comprised the 0–20% quintile, the second fifth used more than the first 1/5 (but less than the third 1/5) and comprised the 21–40% quintile, and so on. Quintiles were computed for each type of media use of interest and graphed side by side. The graph depicts a clear trend associating increased media usage with increased rates of depression.

Figure 4

Pruned CHAID Tree Characterizing SRD, December 2012. The pruned CHAID tree shows groups of subjects wherein rates of depression were greater than 15%. These nodes represent only a subset of all nodes generated by the CHAID tree. Of particular interest for this paper are nodes that are white (instead of blue); these nodes have been highlighted because they are partially defined by the presence of a media use quintile.

Figure 5

Pruned CHAID Tree Characterizing Non-SRD, December 2012. The pruned CHAID tree shows groups of subjects wherein rates of non-depression were greater than 87%. These nodes represent only a subset of all nodes generated by the CHAID tree. Of particular interest for this paper are nodes that are white (instead of blue); these nodes have been highlighted because they are partially defined by the presence of a media use quintile.