Earlier this year I looked at a range of innovations that were aiming to help those with depression. One of these was a new app developed by researchers at the University of Connecticut called LifeRhythm, which is designed to detect symptoms of depression automatically via the numerous sensors that come inbuilt to most phones.
The app will tap into things like GPS, accelerometers and the like to gage the activity levels and social interactions of the user. This information will then be screened for the possibility of depression.
For instance, GPS data might be used to determine how far people are venturing outside their homes. Speech may be analyzed via voice sensors, whilst accelerometers could be used to measure activity levels. Even phone records and SMS data could be used to understand communication patterns.
A similar approach was taken by researchers at the University of Rochester, who used videos recorded by users to detect signs of depression, such as heart rate, blinking rate and head movement rate.
The mobile habits of the depressed
This approach has been mirrored in a recent study from Northwestern University. Their approach rests on the assumption that depressed people have very different phone habits to non-depressed individuals.
The researchers believe that depressed people spend around four times as much time on their phone as their non-depressed peers.
What’s more, the GPS tracking highlighted in the Connecticut study was also used by the Northwestern team, with again, depressed people tending to move around much less, with a less routine schedule each day.
The authors believe that based upon these heuristics they can identify depression from our mobile data with 87 percent accuracy.
“The significance of this is we can detect if a person has depressive symptoms and the severity of those symptoms without asking them any questions,” they say. “We now have an objective measure of behavior related to depression. And we’re detecting it passively. Phones can provide data unobtrusively and with no effort on the part of the user.”
What’s more, the mobile based approach proved to be more reliable than more traditional diagnostic tests.
The authors hope that it will eventually be possible to monitor the mobile habits of people at risk of depression and gain earlier insights into their mental wellbeing than is currently the case. Such people can then be assisted and supported as early as possible.
The next step is to connect up early diagnosis with interventions designed to change the various negative behaviors that are believed to trigger depression.
“We will see if we can reduce symptoms of depression by encouraging people to visit more locations throughout the day, have a more regular routine, spend more time in a variety of places or reduce mobile phone use,” the authors conclude.
I wonder if this is time spent online versus texting/calling, and therefore if our general computer using habits could be equally indicative of our mental health?
That's a very good point Nick. The paper doesn't specify, but given the reduction in mobility, it would appear likely that the phone isn't used for communication per se.
To be honest, I've often wondered about the mental health of people that take selfie after selfie and appear incapable of having a conversation with people they're actually socialising with without having their heads stuck in a phone.
I certainly can't argue with that 🙂
there could also be other factors in the digital world that a person can spend time using than a phone. I guess a sync on the person's digital devices would be a good idea to see the simultaneous activities going on with the person's handheld devices whenever the person switches to another one. don't ya think? but yea if this aims to help earlier detection this is a good way to start