The following is excerpted from an online article posted by StudyFinds
Millions of people scroll, game, or shop online to escape a rough day. It seems intuitive that stress and a bad mood would be the main culprits pushing someone toward problematic internet use. A large new study tracking 900 people over two weeks found something more surprising: the felt urge to go online, that itch of temptation, mattered more than how someone was actually feeling.
On any given day, when a person felt more tempted than usual to go online, the odds of actually logging on roughly doubled. That held true for people whose internet use wasn’t otherwise a problem. People with more severe habits were already far more likely to log on regardless: about 82% of the time for severe cases, compared to just 29% for the non-problem group.
On days with higher temptation, people also spent more time online, got more pleasure and relief out of it, and let other parts of life slide more. That last effect, the neglect, was strongest for those with the most severe habits.
Stressful days meant slightly less time online overall, likely because there was less free time to spare. But for people with the most severe habits, those same stressful days brought something else along with it: more temptation and more neglect of other things. People with more severe internet use problems also reported consistently worse daily moods and higher stress overall throughout the two weeks.
For anyone who has ever told themselves they’ll just log on for a few minutes after a rough day and looked up two hours later having ignored everything else, this study puts a name to a familiar pattern. The bad day may open the door, but it’s the pull itself that keeps people on the other side of it.