The September 1998 issue of the American T Psychologist published an article by Kraut et al. that reported on an experiment examining “the social and psychological impact of the Internet on 169 people in 73 households during their first 1 to 2 years online.” In the experiment, 73 households were offered free Internet access for 1 or 2 years in return for allowing their time and activity online to be tracked. The members of the households who participated in the study were also given a battery of tests at the beginning and again at the end of the study. The conclusion of the study made news headlines: Those who spent more time online tended to be more depressed at the end of the experiment. Although the paper reports a more complex model, the basic result can be summarized in the following regression of Depression (at the end of the study, in “depression scale units”) vs. Internet Use (in mean hours per week):

The news reports about this study clearly concluded that using the Internet causes depression. Discuss whether such a conclusion can be drawn from this regression. If so, discuss the supporting evidence. If not, say why not.

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Dependent variable is Depression R-squared = 4.6% s = 0.4563 Variable Intercept Internet use Coefficient 0.5655 0.0199