EMOTIONSENSE APP MEASURES SMARTPHONE USERS' HAPPINESS
BY: ADDY DUGDALE
Scientists researching the effect of mobile devices on a
person's well-being have created an app that uses a smartphone's sensors to
gauge a user's happiness. EmotionSense is the creation of a group of
researchers from Cambridge University, and it combines data collected
automatically by the phone as well as mood reports from the phone's user to
pinpoint what triggers certain moods.
The app, described as a "journey of discovery,"
as the whole process takes about two months, can measure an environment's noise
level, a user's movement, and who they are communicating with. It can be used
either by individuals as a way of finding out what exactly makes them happy, or
it can be used by therapists, who can configure the data they'd like to
collect.
Information from the phone, such as what time it is
unlocked each morning, how many texts and calls are made and received,
movements, location, and external noise, can be used to gauge just how social
the individual is being. And then there's the human layer, which asks the
phone's owner to determine their mood--these have been devised by
psychologists.
It's not the first time a smartphone has been used to
measure happiness--a pair of researchers from the London School of Economics
created the Mappiness iPhone app back in 2010--but it's the first time the
phone itself has been used to glean information, rather than just the person
using the phone.
EmotionSense is currently Android-only, but the team is
working on other versions. There has been some disquiet by some users
uncomfortable with the app being able to access the phone's SMS records, but
the data is only used within the project.
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