internet-usage

Motivation

There are many claims that internet usage has negative effects on people’s behavior and mental wellbeing. For example, many elders who have experienced life before and after the internet say that it has distanced people, and had a negative impact on social life, even when it is meant to connect them. In this project, I examined the relationship between the number of hours spent online and loneliness, spending behavior, and overall happiness.

Libraries Used

Pandas, NumPy, Matplotlib and Sklearn have been used for this project.

File Descriptions

• proj1.ipynb: Project file; contains the code.
• young-people-survey:
  • responses.csv: The data file; contains answers to the survey questions
  • columns.csv: Maps column names in responses.csv to the actual questions.

Summary of Results:

Below is the questions asked and a summary of the findings:

1. Is there a relationship between the number of hours spent online and feelings of loneliness? people who spend longer hours online tend to feel more lonely. However, note that this conclusion does not explain the cause-effect relationship. It is unclear whether spending longer hours on the internet causes the person to feel lonelier, or if lonelier people spend longer hours on the internet to compensate for their loneliness through social media and online interactions.

2. It is known that one of the most common ways in which websites make profit is through ads. There is also the social media influencers who often share content related to shopping, and -in some cases- possess various luxury items, which may encourage impulsive spending behavior. How does that influence internet users’ shopping habits? Do users who spend longer hours online shop more? and what do they normally shop for? time spent online has some influence on the spending habits of individuals. The more time a person spends online, the more likely they are to spend money on gadgets and entertainment. There is a positive correlation between time spent online and spending on looks, though it is not as strong as I initially assumed. It is also shown that users also tend to be more drawn to branded clothes the longer they spend on the internet.

3. Is there any correlation between internet usage and overall happiness? The data does not show any clear direct relationship between internet usage and happiness, whether positive or negative.

Acknowledgements

Data set: https://www.kaggle.com/miroslavsabo/young-people-survey And of course, the StackOverflow community! :)