2026-10-22: I found these old writings when I was cleaning up some stuff and added them here.
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An argument is being made where the amount of time spent online by 250 adults is shown to be directly proportional to self-reporting of depression symptoms by those adults. This is a modern day issue for humanity since so much technology hasn't existed for quite a long time. There appear to be some major holes in the given logic which need to be filled before we can consider the reasoning for argument to be sound.
Starting with the most major piece of missing detail, the health of survey participants, it is nowhere mentioned whether all the survey participants were healthy (both physically as well as mentally) before they started the survey. While mental health directly correlates with decreased concentration or feeling down in the dumps, many past researches have also proven that our physical health directly affects our mental health, in a way proving the old adage that a healthy mind needs a healthy body to reside in.
They also haven't mentioned anything about the amount of sleep or how much outdoor exercise, if any, the survey participants were having. This bears direct relation on our argument since both sleep and outdoor exercises are known to make our body secrete more of our happy hormones which in turn help us fight off sadness and subsequently mental depression. Along parallel lines, no information is provided as to whether any participants were having any or had any diseases/experiences in the past which may make them feel less cheerful, like someone who has lost an arm in an accident or some other person going through a recent break-up after a long relationship. All the above mentioned factors can affect the results of the survey.
Moving to the next topic, how did they select the amount of time online which acted as a threshold to feeling sad, blue or losing concentration power. They measured in adults spending less than and more than 30 hours per week. How did they come up with that number. Ideally, they should have measured how many hours did a person spend online and just record their responses. Then separate it into multiple categories of say 10 hours gap each, for example - 0-10 hours, 10-20 hours, 20-30 hours and so on. This would have provided with a better understanding and made their survey foolproof. Moreover they should have tried by switching the number of hours spent online for the same adult and then record their responses, that is to put someone spending above 35 hours online on a strict diet of less than 20 hours online. If they find that the adults do report increased concentration and joy in their life then we can say for sure that it is the internet which has been causing them trouble.
It also matters as to where on the internet does a user spend their time. For some adults it is their job to research on some topic online and then write an article for it. Some others like programmers have to spend time online because that's where they find help if they get stuck in whatever they are doing or to make any changes to say a website they have been building. In such cases, one can always include a morning walk or increase their sleeping time to mitigate the negative effects mentioned in the argument.
In summing up we can say that if every other factors in the survey participants would have been equal, about which no indication is given in the argument, then we could have unambiguously associated depression symptoms to time spent online. But for that many points other than those mentioned in the given argument need to be addressed.