Google has announced that it is partnering with researchers to study how our daily mobile devices can affect our mental health, with the aim of better understanding the impact that smartphones have on our lives.
The Center for Digital Mental Health at the University of Oregon has just launched a new digital wellbeing study that collects data using " passive and continuous sensing technology " on your Android smartphone and your Fitbit watch through the Google Health Studies app.
The aim of the study is to see how people actually use their phones and how it affects their well-being . This research may even, in time, help companies to design better products. A study by Mozilla, for example, revealed that applications dedicated to mental health are a real danger to your privacy .
DATA FROM GOOGLE'S APP IS COLLECTED FOR THE STUDY
According to information provided by Google, researchers use the Google Health Studies application because it allows the collection of very precise data relating to the use of smartphones . Indeed, in other studies, researchers instead ask respondents to track and report their own app usage, a method that may be less accurate than researchers would like.
The researchers hope that this approach based on real data collected by Google Health Studies will allow them to discover relationships that other studies have not been able to establish, such as how the time spent looking at a screen actually affects sleep . Researchers also want to find which harmful elements of our smartphones can be controlled and mitigated without having to give up the benefits.
Fortunately, Android smartphone owners are not automatically enrolled in this research project. Only adults in the United States with an Android smartphone capable of performing normal daily activities without assistance can register to participate in the survey. This is a voluntary participation, and the data collected is only used for research purposes , not advertising.
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