Whitney Ringwald Talks About How Smartphones Can be Used to Understand Mental Health on Michigan Public Radio
A recent study led by Whitney Ringwald, faculty, was featured by Michigan Public Radio, highlighting how smartphones can be used to understand trends in mental health-related behavior. While smartphones are often blamed for contributing to our overall decline in mental health, Ringwald recognizes that they can also be a potential tool to understand people’s behavior and eventually improve mental health outcomes. Ringwald’s study used a smartphone app to track its users' geographical location, phone use, communication, battery usage, and sleep. Results of the study showed that the passively detected behavior relates to an array of mental health problems. For example, Ringwald’s team found that people with generally low mood are less physically active, while more antagonistic people make fewer phone calls. Ringwald intends for these findings to eventually inform the application of this technology to real-time symptom monitoring and mobile interventions.
Whitney Ringwald, PhD, Assistant Professor and Starke Hathaway Endowed Chair in Clinical Psychology in the Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota.
Composed by Madison Stromberg, communications assistant.
