How Worse Moods Are Associated with Browsing Negative Content Online? Study Sheds Light
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People with poorer mental health are more prone to browsing negative content online, which further exacerbates their symptoms, finds a study led by UCL researchers. The relationship between mental health and web-browsing is causal and bi-directional, according to the Wellcome-funded study published in Nature Human Behaviour.
The researchers have developed a plug-in tool that adds ‘content labels’ to web pages—similar to nutrition labels on food—designed to help users make healthier and more informed decisions about the content they consume. These labels emphasise the emotional impact of webpage content, along with its practicality and informativeness.
Over 1,000 study participants answered questions about their mental health and shared their web browsing history with the researchers. Using natural language processing methods, the researchers analysed the emotional tone of the webpages participants visited. They found that participants with worse moods and mental health symptoms were inclined to browse more negative content online, and after browsing, those who browsed more negative content felt worse.
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