Internet use and perceived health and happiness

View the most recent version.

Closely related to measures of stress of course, are measures of general health. When asked about their perceived health¹, little difference existed among heavy users, moderate users and non-users of the Internet during the diary day. The only difference of any significance was that moderate Internet users were less likely to report fair or poor health (10.7% of moderate users) compared with non-Internet users (14.5%). Of course, measures of health can be heavily influenced by other factors such as the age of respondents and a logistic regression was used to investigate this further. While identifying many factors associated with one’s chances of perceiving their health to be fair or poor, no significant relationship between health and level of Internet use could be observed while controlling for these other variables².

The GSS Time Use survey also addressed respondents’ self-perceptions of happiness³. More moderate Internet users (42.3%) and non-users (43.7%) described themselves as being “very” happy compared to heavy users (35.9%), but if these figures were totalled to include those respondents who described themselves as either “very” or “somewhat” happy, there was little difference between the groups. Only 4.6% of non-users, 5.2% of moderate Internet users and 5.4% of heavy Internet users portrayed themselves as “somewhat” or “very” unhappy, making it difficult to discern differences among the groups.

A multivariate analysis confirmed that once other factors⁴ related to unhappiness were considered (including perceived health, which was found to be most influential in relation to unhappiness), there was not sufficient evidence to support a relationship between level of Internet use and unhappiness.

Thus, when considering these findings and those of the previous section, the various models seem to suggest that moderate Internet users were slightly less likely to feel stressed or rushed than non-users, after controlling for other factors related to stress. No significant difference in the chances of reporting fair or poor health existed among Internet users and non-users when controlling for other variables closely related to individual health.

1. Respondents were asked, “In general, would you say your health is: Excellent? Very good? Good? Fair? or Poor?”

2. In the model, level of Internet use, sex, and presence of children in the household were not associated with any change in the likelihood that respondents would describe their health as “fair” or “poor”. Variables associated with increased chances of reporting fair or poor health included: old age, lack of regular participation in sports in the past year, work status (being unemployed or a household worker), and not having a married or common law partner. Likewise, those with moderate or high household incomes were significantly less likely to report their health to be fair or poor compared to those respondents who lived in households with incomes of less than $30,000. Those who had completed post-secondary education were also less likely to report fair or poor health compared with those whose highest level of education was a high school diploma, while controlling for other factors in the model.

3. Respondents were asked, “Presently, would you describe yourself as: Very happy? Somewhat happy? Somewhat unhappy? or Very Unhappy?”

4. Factors that increased the odds of being unhappy included fair or poor perceived health, being middle-aged, unemployed, lacking a married or common-law partner and low-income. Internet use, sex, educational attainment, presence of children in the household and time of year of interview were also included in the model but were not significantly associated with the odds of being unhappy, while controlling for other variables.