Evan Jordan can tell when you are stressed, even though he’s never met or interacted with you. An assistant professor of health and wellness design at Indiana University’s School of Public Health-Bloomington, Jordan and his team use GPS tracking to find connections between a person’s environment and their mental health. The data could be stunningly revealing.
Why? Because where we are in the world and how much we move is a big indicator of our mental health. Studies suggest that if we take a lot of walks to the park, we’re statistically less likely to have anxiety and depression. If we, on the other hand, are couch-bound and away from greenery, we’re more likely to be diagnosed with those two conditions. It’s certainly not a fool-proof diagnostic tool but rather a potentially powerful data point, one that requires nothing more than our smartphones.
Jordan’s research is part of a new wave of technologies to monitor mental health without directly asking how you feel. In a way, your smart devices already have a good sense of whether you’re stressed, relaxed, elated, sad — or experiencing long-term anxiety or depression. That is, they have the data points – sleep quality, heart rate, your movement — that some experts like Jordan believe give a reliable diagnosis for mental health disorders. With the right app, our phones may be able to arrive at a diagnosis or treatment quicker, enable clinicians to remotely keep a closer eye on vulnerable individuals, and improve the overall quality and accessibility of mental health support.
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Professor Tazneem Choudhury of the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute is featured in this article.
