What Internet Habits Say about Mental Health
科学美国人中文版 - 上网习惯揭示心理健康
Researchers find clues to depression in what people do online
Consider two questions. First: Who are you? What makes you different from your peers, in terms of the things you buy, the clothes you wear, and the car you drive (or refuse to)? What makes you unique in terms of your basic psychological make-up—the part of you that makes you do the things you do, say the things you say, and feel the things you feel? And the second question: How do you use the internet?
研究者们在人们的上网方式上发现抑郁症的迹象。
先回答两个问题。第一：你是谁？什么让你与同龄人不一样——是你买的东西，你的穿着还是你开的车（或者不愿意开的车）？在心理层面上什么让你与众不同——你为何做你所做，说你所说，以及感你所感？第二个问题：你如何使用网络？
Although these questions may seem unrelated, they’re not. Clearly the content of your internet usage can suggest certain psychological characteristics. Spending a lot of late nights playing high stakes internet poker? Chances are you are a risk taker. Like to post videos of yourself doing karaoke on YouTube? Clearly an extravert. But what about the mechanics of your internet usage—how often you email others, chat online, stream media, or multi-task (switch from one application or website to another)? Can these behaviors—regardless of their content—also predict psychological characteristics? Recent research conducted by a team of computer scientists, engineers, and psychologists suggests that it might. Indeed, their data show that such analysis could predict a particularly important aspect of the self: the tendency to experience depression.
尽管这些问题看似无所关联，但是它们之间是存在联系的。你对于网络的使用可以反映出你的心理特点。经常熬夜上网打高赌注扑克？你有可能爱好冒险。喜欢往 Youtube上传自己唱卡拉ok的视频？你显然很外向。还有你在做某件事的频率——比如发邮件，聊天，看视频或是在应用软件（或网站）之间换来换去。这 些行为——先抛开具体内容不谈——是否也可以同样预示你的心理特点？最近一项由计算机科学家，计算机工程师以及心理学家共同完成的研究表明以上所说皆有可 能。事实上，他们的数据显示这种基于网络的分析可以预示关于自我的一个重要特征： 抑郁症的趋势。
First, the research team asked over 200 volunteers to fill out a survey about “recent affective experiences;” what the volunteers didn’t know was that a well-known measure of depression—the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression (CES-D) scale—was embedded within this survey. The researchers then correlated scores on the hidden depression scale with individual trends in internet usage, grouped into three categories: “aggregate,” which indicated how much information was being sent and received over a network, “application,” which indicated the broad category of program that was being used (e.g., email, surfing the web, downloading media), and “entropy,” which indicated the degree of randomness in information flow (essentially, the extent to which someone was sending and receiving information to multiple net-based resources at once).
首先，这个研究小组要求200多个志愿者填写关于“最近情感经历”的调查表。但志愿者们却不知道流行 病调查中心抑郁量表（众所周知测量抑郁的手段）也被嵌入了这项调查里。之后，研究员将抑郁量表的结果与网络使用的趋势进行比对，并将结果分为3类：“信息 集合”，表示网络里信息的发出和接受量；“应用”，表示程序的主要类别（比如：邮件，上网，下载）以及“信息熵”，表示信息流的随机性程度（特别是同时从多个网络资源发送和接受信息的程度）
Again, researchers didn’t know what people were looking at on the internet (for example, depression support groups—a dead giveaway), but merely how they were using the internet. None of the data categories gave specific information about what websites people were visiting, the content of their emails or chats, or the types of files being downloaded—they simply indicated the extent to which people used different broad categories of net-based resources, as well as differences in people’s tendency to use many resources at once.
再次声明，研究者们不知道人们在网上看到的内容（比如，抑郁症支持群体——秘密彻底的泄露），他们只知道人们使用网络的方法。所有数据都不包括网站的详细信息，电子邮件或聊天的内容，还有下载文件的方式——他们只是研究人们使用不同网络资源的程度以及在同时使用很多资源时人们之间的区别。
It turns out that very specific patterns of internet use are reliably related to depressive tendencies. For example, peer-to-peer file sharing, heavy emailing and chatting online, and a tendency to quickly switch between multiple websites and other online resources all predict a greater propensity to experience symptoms of depression. Although the exact reasons that these behaviors predict depression is unknown, each behavior corresponds with previous research on depression. Quickly switching between websites may reflect anhedonia (a decreased ability to experience emotions), as people desperately seek for emotional stimulation. Similarly, excessive emailing and chatting may signify a relative lack of strong face-to-face relationships, as people strive to maintain contact either with faraway friends or new people met online.
结果显示使用网络的方法与抑郁症趋势间确实存在着联系。比如，同伴间的文件传输，经常性的电邮往来和在线聊天，以及在不同网络资源和网站之间不停地转换 ——这些在很大程度上都是抑郁症表现。尽管这些行为为何会与抑郁症挂钩还尚未弄清，但是每个行为都与过去抑郁症的研究相一致。快速在网站间转换是“快感缺 乏”（情感的体验力下降）的表现，这时人们会急不可耐地寻求情感刺激。同样的，过度的邮件交流和网络聊天则表明相对缺乏面对面交流的人际关系，人们此时会 不停地与远方的朋友或新网友聊天。
These data are particularly important for several reasons. Depression is both prevalent and dangerous. Recent estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicate that around 10 percent of adults in the United States currently suffer from clinical depression—depression that consists of symptoms such as disruptions in eating, sleeping, and concentration patterns, lack of interest in daily activities, and consistently feeling like a failure. These estimates are even higher for other segments of the population; for example, a 2011 report by the American College Health Association found that 30 percent of college students have “felt so depressed that it was difficult to function” within the past year.
这些数据有着特殊的重要意义。因为抑郁症不仅很普遍而且很危险。最近疾病防治中心的数据表明美国10%的成年人目前患有临床抑郁症——这种抑郁症有很多症 状表现，比如饮食，睡眠的不规律，精神不集中，对日常生活缺乏兴趣以及不断地认为自己很失败。某一特殊群体这方面的数据甚至更高；比如，美国大学健康协会 2011年的一份报告指出30%的大学生在过去的一年里都有“压力太大，无法正常运转”的想法。
Despite the serious negative consequences of living with depression, the condition is notoriously hard to diagnose. Estimates suggest that as many as two thirds of people living with depression do not realize that they have a treatable condition and, as a result, do not seek treatment. Even those who do seek treatment—either voluntarily or at the request of friends, family members, or doctors—are often ashamed to admit to their symptoms. Any diagnosis relying on self-report—whether it be a self-administered test or a clinical interview in a doctor’s office—is prone to selective reporting. No one wants to be depressed and, as a result, many people suffering from depression may answer from the perspective of how they want to feel, rather than how they actually feel.
尽管抑郁症会给我们带来很多负面影响，但是这种症状是出了名的难以诊断。据估计，大约有三分之二的抑郁症患者没有意识到这种症状是可以医治的，因此也没有 接受治疗。即使那些接受治疗的人——不管是自愿的还是被朋友，家人或是医生要求的——经常羞愧得不愿意坦诚自己的症状。基于当事人自我报告的诊断——通过 问卷调查或者与医生的交谈——大部分都是不完整的。没有人想得抑郁症，因此，很多患有抑郁症的人会回答自己想要的那种感觉，而不是自己真实的感觉。
In this way, diagnosing people at risk for depression is similar to diagnosing people at risk for committing suicide. Those most vulnerable —the people who actually intend to carry out the act—are unlikely to reveal this information. As a result, clinical psychologists have developed ways to test for suicidal intentions that circumvent self-report issues; for example, by using implicit methods that may reveal intentions of which the patients themselves are unaware.
在这种状况下，诊断处于抑郁症中的患者类同于诊断有自杀想法的患者。那些最为脆弱的即有自杀冲动的人，不太可能透露这些信息。因此，临床心理医生想出绕开自我报告测试自杀倾向的方法；比如，用暗示的方式可以弄清楚患者自己未意识到的想法。
Perhaps the most exciting implication of the data linking internet usage to depression is the possibility that clues of depressive tendencies can also be identified early, not only before the opportunity for professional diagnosis but perhaps also before people are aware of it themselves. An intervention as simple as tracking internet use may allow depression, a prevalent and dangerous illness, to be discovered and treated earlier, more effectively, and for more people.
也许这种数据（将网络使用方法与抑郁症相关联）最令人兴奋的地方就在于它们不仅可能在专业诊断前，甚至还会在患者自己意识到之前发现抑郁症迹象。这种通过了解网络用法来诊断的方法可以尽早的发现并更有效的治疗抑郁症——这种流行且危险的病症，使更多人早日康复。
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
关于作者
Adrian F. Ward is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. His doctoral research is focused on the relationships between technology, cognition, social relationships, and self-esteem. Piercarlo Valdesolo is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Claremont McKenna College, and co-author of the book Out of Character.
Adrian F. Ward 是哈佛大学心理系的博士研究生。它的博士研究主要是技术，认知，社会关系和自尊间的关系。 Piercarlo Valdesolo 是克莱蒙特•麦肯纳学院心理学助理教授也是Out of Character这本书的作者之一。
By Adrian F. Ward and Piercarlo Valdesolo
本文由 Adrian F. Ward and Piercarlo Valdesolo 撰写。
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