You’re really agreeing with me here. Your statement is depressed people get something out of the internet and therefore spend more time on it. So being depressed heightened their risk for spending too much time on the internet. Things like drinking or excessive internet use are generally coping mechanism, we develop coping mechanism for problems we already have. The article tries to make it seem like spending too much time on the internet is the original problem which is the difference I meant to highlight in my post. It’s like a what came first scenario, “watch your kids internet usage, if they’re on too much it could depress them!” Or they’re already depressed and giving them shit for being on the internet because you’re afraid they might get depressed is a really great way to ignore the fact they’re already depressed.

I’ve literally lived with multiple people who use internet/games/alcohol to escape from their problems that existed well before the substance abuse kicked in and you would be surprised how many people think the problem started with the coping mechanism.