A surprising new international study involving more than 2.4 million people across 168 countries found a positive relationship between internet connectivity and well-being. Researchers from the University of Oxford analyzed data for people over a 15-year period, tracking signs of well-being, such as satisfaction and sense of purpose.

The researchers found that 84.9% of associations between internet connectivity and well-being were positive and statistically significant.  The researchers studied eight indicators of well-being: life satisfaction, daily negative and positive experiences, two indices of social well-being, physical well-being, community well-being and experiences of purpose, says a university news release

“We were surprised to find a positive correlation between well-being and internet use across the majority of the thousands of models we used for our analysis,” said Matti Vuorre, an experimental psychologist, and data scientist at Oxford Internet Institute. The study included individuals ages 15 years to 99, so it provided a broader spectrum of the effect internet connectivity had on adults, not just on young people.

However, while the overall sense of well-being across the countries was positive, the researchers did find that there was a 4.9% negative association between internet use and well-being among young women ages 15 to 24. This specific finding is consistent with previous reports of increased cyberbullying and the more negative impact social media use can have on young women, resulting in more depressive symptoms.

“We set out to address this gap by analyzing how internet access, mobile internet access, and active internet use might predict psychological well-being on a global level across the life stages,” adds Andrew Przybylski, a psychologist and fellow researcher on the study. “To our knowledge no other research has directly grappled with these issues and addressed the worldwide scope of the debate.”

The researchers found the interaction between people and internet activity was consistently positive on their state of well-being. They had more satisfaction in life and more positive experiences, as well as improved social satisfaction.

“We hope our findings bring some greater context to the screen time debate,” said Przybylski, adding that he and his colleagues would like to see their work go further with psychologists and social scientists accessing the behavioral data available to establish a “more comprehensive understanding of internet technologies in our daily lives.”