The Effect of Broadband Internet on Mental Health

Abstract

This paper studies the effect of broadband diffusion on individuals' mental health in Belgium. Residential access to high-speed internet has altered how, when, and where individuals conduct a wide range of activities that may impact individuals' mental well-being. Our empirical strategy exploits a technological feature of the telecommunication infrastructure that generated substantial variation in the availability of Internet access across households: the distance of a household from a network node. Using a difference-in-differences design, we find that access to broadband internet when initially deployed is associated with a 0.6 percentage point increase in long-term disability rates due to mental health conditions, about 30% of the sample mean. These effects are concentrated among knowledge-intensive sector workers, and in industries with a higher share of jobs that can be done from home. We find no impact of internet access on the probability of long-term disability due to other medical reasons, such as musculoskeletal conditions. This paper contributes to a broader understanding of the upward trend in work-related illnesses—burnout and chronic stress—and their role in the expansion of disability insurance programs.