Do social networks make us sick?

From the Ottawa Citizen:

In an age when Internet devices are always on, meeting face-toface is becoming increasingly rare as people choose to meet screento-screen. Goldfield wants to know what this new dynamic is doing to normal social interaction? How do these devices and social media services, such as Facebook, affect the way we socialize and communicate with each other? But, more than that, what impact do these social networks have on their user's mental health?

Murray and Goldfield have teamed up and have scraped together funding to conduct a study this summer examining the impact Facebook has on people's mental health and their everyday lives and interactions.

They aren't alone.

John Lyons, director of CHEO's mental health research group, has applied to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research for a grant to conduct his own study into the topic. However, Lyon's study will be laser focused. With so much anecdotal evidence about the effects of cyberbullying and online taunts, he wants to know what role social media plays in a person's decision to end their life, and if there is a way to leverage social technologies to reach out to people considering suicide.