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Mental health

The continued hype and hope of digital phenotyping

Nature Reviews Psychology volume 3, page 448 (2024)Cite this article

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Smartphones are often criticised for negatively affecting people’s mental health. People rely on smartphones for many basic activities, such as sending and receiving emails, staying socially connected, and accessing maps for travel directions. Through their relentless demand for attention, smartphones can erode people’s ability to engage meaningfully with others around them. For many people, just the thought of spending a day without access to a smartphone provokes anxiety. However, smartphones could emerge as one of the most important instruments of healing in mental health.

In 2017, Thomas Insel outlined a future in which smartphones and digital data could play a crucial role in understanding and diagnosing mental health disorders. Smartphones are used globally, and their broad and constant use enables digital data to be collected quietly and continuously in the background. Termed ‘digital phenotyping’, this process involves collecting data from smartphone sensors, keyboard interactions and voice analysis to measure behaviour, cognition and mood. For example, data collected from a smartphone’s global positioning system can be used to generate phenotypes such as the frequency and duration of visits to various locations, which offers insights into an individual’s physical activity levels and social interactions.

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References

Original article

  • Insel, T. R. Digital Phenotyping: technology for a new science of behavior. JAMA 318, 1215–1216 (2017)

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  1. Black Dog Institute, University of New South Wales, Randwick, New South Wales, Australia

    Taylor A. Braund

  2. Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of New South Wales, Randwick, New South Wales, Australia

    Taylor A. Braund

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  1. Taylor A. Braund
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Correspondence to Taylor A. Braund.

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Braund, T.A. The continued hype and hope of digital phenotyping. Nat Rev Psychol 3, 448 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-024-00326-9

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