This forum is making you depressed

[Sahan]

Proof.

I don't know how accurate this is, but I guess it explains why I feel a little down after I've been on the computer for a few hours, because I could never understand it before. Then again, the link seems rather tentative to say the least, all they can really confirm is that some teenagers got depressed between 1995 and 2002. I blame it on the success of Nickelback myself.

[mountainmage]

I don't feel down after being on the computer for a long period of time. I guess you could say I've built a resistance (lengthy sessions on mmos and other various computer things) over the years. I do get bored though, like fed-up that I've run out of things to do once every post has been replied to and every web-comic and youtube has been checked.

[Lethal Interjection]

I'm not sure the forum would count. This isn't as anti-social of an activity as most computer game playing, TV watching and such.
That said, I do believe that, within reason, the studies reports are thoroughly plausible. It makes sense.
I wouldn't say I feel depressed after long usage, necessarily. I do feel a bit down, though, if for whatever reason I'm not able to get together with friends at all for a period of time (usually due to my working afternoons), and thus spend my time only at work or only doing the things listed. But I'm usually able to realize that I've been without proper social interaction for a time. Actually, my new living arrangement has ultimately helped this, because my roomate is in school, so I'll often see him before work and when I get home, so there is some sort of social interaction. Whereas, in my old place, my roomate tended to work days, so I rarely saw him before work, and seldom when I got home (I work 3-12), so I didn't get much social interaction, and after a week or two of that, it would often take its toll.

[ChooChooTrain]

I would suggest that humans need to feel that they are doing something significant. All work and no play stresses me out and makes me feel pretty crappy, but the short periods of time that I've spent at the other extreme have made me feel just as crappy. On the days that I sleep in and waste the day away on videogames, I go to bed slightly regretful knowing I have wasted all of that time. I think that people either find something that they think is significant, or they tell themselves that whatever they are currently doing is significant. Nobody who spends their time playing videogames is really able to convince themselves they have accomplished anything, and so they have a nagging guilt because they know they wasted their time. I'm not really trying to make an argument against videogames. I consider myself a gamer, and I think they have their place. I do think that when too much time is spent on them, it is inevitable that the gamer will feel some regret, which could lead to depression.

[mountainmage]

I'm so apathetic, wasted days mean nothing to me. But that's just me.

[Laneth]

I spent four-and-a-half years unemployed and doing nothing but surfing the 'Net and playing games - I also grew up on a computer. My dad was a tech in the Australian Air-Force and would bring home stacks of games as they came out or pirate them from overseas. I remember the good ole days of cassette gaming on the Commodore 64 *contented sigh*

PC's are my life, there's very little I do these days that doesn't involve a pc...except maybe food and sex. (immediately after typing this sentence, I felt the impeding edits or "fixes" that could come out of that...lol...come)

So yeah. Australian Psychologists that came up with this crap are just as deluded as those who say that videogame cause violent behavior in teens and young adults, and that we shouldn't have an R rating for games...

[mountainmage]

Or M (for mature) for us Americans.

[ChooChooTrain]

I'm so apathetic, wasted days mean nothing to me. But that's just me.

Perhaps they will mean something to you eventually when you look back and realize that all of those wasted days add up to a wasted month or a wasted year. Maybe you'll wish you could have it back. Maybe realizations like that are what cause some gamers to become depressed. It's just a thought, but I expect that it's at least a factor.

[mountainmage]

I'm not a gamer though. Plus, it's not like I had anything better to do.

[cheez.wiz]

How can you waste a day?

I, for one, still think, act and react everyday. Either by reading, watching tv (though that one is so-so in my opinion) or reading webcomics you'll come around to at least create one valid thought each day. Don't you?

[mountainmage]

Exactly. A day alive is a day not wasted, in my opinion.

[w1ndy]

Depression sucks, but I believe there are natural cures, it's called sex, pot, and rock and roll.

[Edminster]

Depression sucks, but I believe there are natural cures, it's called sex, pot, and rock and roll.

Oh man, Ahmet's always gonna be depressed what with his sadness & loneliness, abstaining from drugs, and avoiding the Devil's music.

[LordRetard]

What about those people who go to clubs, listen to music, then get drugged and raped?

[Rainbow]

What about those people that listen to smooth jazz? Oh, wait, we know they're already dead inside.