WASHINGTON, D.C. — Two new studies, from the National Institute of Mental Health and Ohio State University, have returned some interesting information about American social media users. According to the research, scientists were able to find a correlation between enjoyment of articles like, “23 Soul-Crushing Problems Only Left-Handed People Will Understand,” and quizzes like, “Which ‘Avengers’ Character Are You?” that are commonly found on web sites like Buzzfeed.com and Distractify.com with things like lower than average IQ and mental disorders.
In one study, Ohio State’s Chien-Liang Lin and Dr. Douglas Sharre observed the daily habits of 148 participants who routinely shared links to articles from such sites with their friends on platforms like Facebook or Twitter. They were able to analyze this data for any commonalities and found that 141 of those study subjects had an IQ of less than 70.
“This kind of result generally would indicate that these web sites gear their articles toward people bordering on having mild intellectual disability,” Dr. Sharre explained. Their findings were backed up by a control group of 148 users known to have higher than average IQs. “We noticed that all but one of those control subjects expressed frustration by simply viewing the title of the link,” Sharre indicated.
Scott Stroup, the author of the NIMH study, revealed further illumination on the topic. According to their findings, an overwhelming number of the participants in their study had been diagnosed with depression. In many cases, Stroup said, “the people for whom depression was marked experienced a euphoric state when taking the quizzes these web sites craft.” Stroup was quick to expand, however, that the enjoyment did not last long. “Many of our 320 surveyed individuals were sitting at home or at their desks during work, and their depression was generally triggered by dissatisfaction at those situations.”
The NIMH utilized around 300 participants with no known history of mental disorders. Institute Director Thomas R. Insel, M.D., had this to say about their results: “There was no marked observation of happiness from the control group, which would confirm that these web site articles have little to no effect on individuals not suffering from a mental illness.”
Alternative studies by other groups found, interestingly enough, that users who frequently visited and shared articles from NPR.org and TheOnion.com had higher than average IQs, while readers of FoxNews.com possessed only a rudimentary understanding of politics, though no link to any of those data could be located.