Internet addicts are more likely to suffer from depression, according to a study performed by Leeds University in the United Kingdom.

According to the study, those who are obsessed with their internet use are likely to replace normal social interaction with less healthy habits in forums, chat rooms, and other social networking online communities.

Dr. Catriona Morrison of Leeds University said on the school’s official website, “While many of us use the internet to pay bills, shop and send emails, there is a small subset of the population who find it hard to control how much time they spend online, to the point where it interferes with their daily activities.”

It is not clear whether depression causes internet addiction, or that the depression was already present before the person started using the internet. “What is clear, is that for a small subset of people, excessive use of the internet could be a warning signal for depressive tendencies,” said Morrison.

The study was conducted on 1,319 British internet users ranging in age from 16 to 51. Of those numbers about 1.2% of the subjects were diagnosed with internet addiction. This percentage is larger than the country’s 0.6% of people suffering from a gambling problem.

This research will become available on February 10th in the magazine Psychopathology.