Using the Internet enhances a person's well-being

Despite concerns about the dangers of being online, a University of Oxford study suggests that surfing the net has a largely beneficial impact.

The team analysed data from two million people aged 15 to 99 in 168 countries, and more than 33,000 statistical models found that 84.9 per cent of associations between Internet connectivity and life satisfaction were positive.

Andrew Przybylski, professor of human behaviour and technology at the Oxford Internet Institute, said: "Overall, we found that average associations were consistent across Internet adoption predictors and well-being outcomes, with those who had access to or actively used the Internet reporting meaningfully greater well-being than those who did not.

"We hope our findings bring some greater context to the screen time debate, however, further work is still needed in this important area."

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