Internet Use may Cut Retirees' Depression

Retirees who regularly spent time online were about a third less likely to suffer from depression when compared to peers who refrained from it, a new study shows.

"This provides some evidence that the mechanism linking Internet use to depression is the remediation of social isolation and loneliness," the authors said in a statement. "Encouraging older adults to use the Internet may help decrease isolation, loneliness, and depression."

Depression affects nearly 8 percent of Americans over the age of 50, or between 5 and 10 million people, researchers wrote in The Journals of Gerontology: Series B. And older adults are more likely to be depressed than younger people, lead study author Shelia Cotten told Reuters Health.

Cotten and her colleagues utilized data from the U.S. Health and Retirement Study, which included surveys from 3,075 retired men and women who did not live in nursing homes.

Out of the approximate 30 percent of Internet users, retirees who reportedly regularly surfed the web reduced their probability of depression by 33 percent. The study didn't examine how often respondents used the Internet, researchers noted.

Depression in older people tends to go untreated because symptoms are often mistaken as signs of dementia, Alzheimer's Disease, cancer, Parkinson's Disease, or stroke, according to the National Alliance on Medical Illness. These symptoms can include confusion, social withdrawal, weight loss, lack of sleep, irritability and memory loss.

"So I would really encourage people to help their older loved ones to get online and not to assume that it's beyond them, because it's not," Cotten said.

"It's really about how they can see it integrated into their lives and being useful for them that will help them to stay online," she added.