Relationship between internet use and depression: Focus on physiological mood oscillations, social networking and online addictive behavior

The aim of the research was to investigate the potential relationship between internet addiction and depression in adolescents. A cross-sectional observational study was conducted on a sample of 336 high school students in Belgrade, Serbia. Each student was given a questionnaire consisting of Center for Epidemiologic Studies of Depression Scale for Children (CES-DC), Young Internet Addiction Test (IAT) as well as general questions related to internet and social networking site (SNS) use. The results of our study indicate that internet use and level of internet addiction measured with IAT scale are positively correlated with depressive symptoms. No such relationship existed between the time spent on social networking sites and depression, as well as between depression symptoms and SNS-related activities such as the number of Facebook friends. Neither the time spent on SNSs nor SNS-related activities had significant effect on the observed relationship between level of internet addiction and depression.