A specialized iPhone app was used to block internet access, recording any time that the feature was disabled.
In numbers, nearly all the participants — 91 percent — improved on at least one of the three outcomes, while around three-quarters reported better mental health by the end.
The findings even suggest that the intervention had a stronger effect on depression symptoms than antidepressants, and was roughly on par with cognitive behavioral therapy.
What’s driving all this? Ward suggests that the simplest explanation is that the experiment forced participants to spend more time doing fulfilling things in the real world.
… the assumption here is that people know what they find fulfilling. Before the internet people would stare at the tv for 12 hours a day.
I have several very fulfilling hobbies but I don’t have enough money or time (especially time) to do them. Hurray.
I often feel like I don’t have time for my many hobbies, then I realize I’ve just spent 3 hours on lemmy or reddit.
Are you me? Because this is me.
We need to get off the internet. Or at least off lemmy. Probably better to get off the internet more often, otherwise we’ll just find something else :/
OTOH my friend and I spent most of the weekend making this for his new apartment. The opening fits his little TV, so when he isn’t watching a show he can play fire videos on it.
That’s so cool! Is it plaster? I really like the stone lines
It’s rectangles of 2-inch solid foam insulation glued onto a plywood frame. We carved the stones with knives and smoothed the edges with the side of a soldering iron. Then we pressed the surface of a big rock all over it for texture, and painted it with mod podge to seal it. Next will paint it gray and do some dry-brushing with black, brown and rust to give the rocks some variety. The “mantle” on top is an already varnished pine board salvaged from built-in bunk beds I made for my kids back in the day.
Very resourceful, I love it. If you remember, I’d be interested in seeing the finished product, but either way I hope it turns out great! Nice job making the time for something like this!
Thank you! Painting should be done this coming weekend, I will post photos.
That’s irrelevant. The study showed that people were in better mental health and the reason why he said it was because they were doing fulfilling hobbies is probably because they told the researchers that’s what they did instead.
Yes, we love science unless it’s critical of our own behavior, right? Lemme think now… who else has that attitude?