{"id":41636,"date":"2015-07-17T11:15:43","date_gmt":"2015-07-17T15:15:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/?p=41636"},"modified":"2016-07-14T16:07:41","modified_gmt":"2016-07-14T20:07:41","slug":"news-smartphone-symptoms-of-depression-test-071715","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/lifestyle\/news-smartphone-symptoms-of-depression-test-071715\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Your Phone Tell When You\u2019re Depressed?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Is
Photo: Pond5<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Man\u2019s best friend<\/a> is more likely to be his smartphone than his dog these days. That\u2019s why it makes sense that your technology might be the first to know if you\u2019re starting to get depressed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A new study<\/a> from Northwestern Medicine revealed that people with symptoms of depression use their phones nearly four times<\/em> as much as those who aren\u2019t depressed. To break it down: Depressed people spent about 68 minutes each day tapping away, compared to just 17 minutes for those without depression.<\/p>\n

RELATED:<\/strong> Feeling Anxious or Sad? Why E-Therapy Might Help<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people use their phones more to look at Facebook or the Internet, it distracts them from what they\u2019re feeling in the moment,\u201d says study author Stephen Schueller, PhD, assistant professor at Northwestern\u2019s Feinberg School of Medicine.<\/p>\n

“For a lot of people with depression, we see a pattern of them just going from work to home.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The small two-week study of 28 participants used a tracker<\/a> to monitor how much time people spent on their phones, and how often they moved around, based on the GPS. Each participant also took a standardized questionnaire used to diagnose depression in clinical settings. By the end of the study, it turned out that a person\u2019s phone data could also act as a depression test,\u00a0with 87 percent accuracy compared to the traditional clinical questionnaire.<\/p>\n

But before you resolve to quit Instagram<\/a> for good, it turns out that a person\u2019s GPS action is an even stronger predictor of the blues than time spent staring at the screen. \u201cWhere they were going, how often they were getting out of house, how many different places they were visiting \u2014 that pattern of daily living was more strongly predictive than time spent on the phone,\u201d Schueller says.<\/p>\n

Simply put, mentally healthy people are more likely to be on the move. \u201cFor a lot of people with depression, we see a pattern of them just going from work to home,\u201d Schueller says. \u201cBut people without depression do a lot of different things \u2014 they go grocery shopping<\/a>, they go out and get active<\/a>, they\u2019re engaging in social activities. And they\u2019re doing it on a more regular basis.\u201d<\/p>\n

RELATED:<\/strong> Sweating Out the Sadness: Can Exercise Help You Grieve?<\/a><\/p>\n

In the future, researchers hope this technology can be used to alert users, or medical providers, that they may be falling into unhealthy patterns. It could also help docs determine whether treatments for depression are actually working. And before you get worried that big brother is watching, the researchers say they have precautions in place to guard your privacy \u2014\u00a0and make sure the GPS data doesn\u2019t reveal your exact location.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, resist the urge to hide behind your device when you\u2019re feeling down \u2014\u00a0and reach out to a friend IRL, instead. \u201cIf you really struggle with using your phone all the time, make sure it\u2019s not always in your pocket or right next to you,\u201d Schueller says. \u201cEven taking a couple of steps before picking up your phone is going to make you less likely to use it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your phone might know you\u2019re depressed before you even realize it yourself, according to a new study from Northwestern Medicine. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":41638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,12],"tags":[251,282,341,343,167],"class_list":["post-41636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","category-mental-health","tag-news","tag-stress","tag-tax1living-well","tag-tax2exercise","tag-technology"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}