Warning: the internet could be bad for your psychlogical health. In particular, it may increase your sense of loneliness and depression, cause you to drop friendships and weaken your bonds with members of your immediate family. These are the findings of a US academic study that claims to represent the first widespread investigation of the social impact of going online. Too much time spent using e-mail and loitering in online chat rooms appears to degrade most people's social lives, according to Robert Kraut, a social psychology professor at Carnegie Mellon University, who led the study.