London university's study reveals harmful feedback loop between mental health, negative online content

People with poorer mental health are more likely to browse negative content online, which can worsen their symptoms, according to a groundbreaking study led by researchers at University College London (UCL).

Published in the online journal Nature Human Behaviour, the study establishes a causal and bi-directional relationship between mental health and online behavior, revealing how exposure to emotionally negative content can perpetuate a cycle of distress.

The research team, co-led by Tali Sharot, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at UCL, the Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Aging Research and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), developed an innovative plug-in tool to combat this issue.

Similar to nutritional labels on food, the tool provides "content labels" for webpages. These labels help users assess the emotional impact, practicality and informativeness of the content they consume, enabling healthier and more informed browsing decisions.

"Our results show that browsing negatively valenced content not only mirrors a person's mood but can also actively worsen it," said Prof. Sharot. "This creates a feedback loop that can perpetuate mental health challenges over time."

The study analyzed data from over 1,000 participants who shared their web browsing histories and completed mental health questionnaires. Using natural language processing, researchers evaluated the emotional tone of the webpages visited.

The findings revealed that individuals experiencing poor mental health symptoms were more inclined to seek out negative content online. In turn, consuming such content exacerbated their symptoms, intensifying feelings of sadness or anxiety.

In an additional experiment, researchers manipulated the types of websites participants visited.

Those exposed to negative content reported significantly worse moods afterward compared to those who viewed neutral content. This demonstrated a direct causal effect of online negativity on mental well-being.