Spending less face-to-face time with family doubles depression risk

Using email and text messages to stay in touch with family and friends is not enough to keep depression at bay. Recent studies claim that those people who meet up with their loved ones three times a week and spend time face-to-face are much less likely to develop depression that those who don’t.

The research team, led by Dr Alan Teo from Oregon Health and Science University, assessed more that 11,000 adults aged 50 and older in the US. They examined the frequency of face-to-face, telephone, email and written social contact as well as looked at the risk of depression symptoms two years later. The team also took into account factors including health status, how close people lived from family and past history of depression.

Their findings showed that having little face-to-face social contact nearly doubles a person’s risk of having depression two years later. The results of this study were published online in the Journal of American Geriatrics Society, reports the Daily Mail.