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What you need to know
- The University of Oregon, in collaboration with Google, will study the impact of smartphones on mental health.
- Researchers will use Google’s Health Studies app to conduct research on the digital wellbeing of smartphone users.
- The study will begin May 27 and is open to any adult in the United States who has an Android phone.
While Digital Wellbeing features are now required on all Google-certified Android phones, manufacturers have a long way to go in terms of designing better products with mental health in mind. That’s why researchers at the University of Oregon are collaborating with Google to study the impact of smartphones on digital wellbeing.
Dr. Nicholas Allen, professor and director of psychology at the University of Oregon’s Center for Digital Mental Health, announced the new research project in a blog post. Allen, the study’s lead researcher, explained that the team will use Google’s Health Studies app to look at how people use their phones and how screen time affects their overall well-being.
This study is open to adults in the United States who own the best Android phone. It will run for four weeks starting from May 27. Participants’ devices must have the Google Health Study app installed. Using the app, the researchers hope to gain a better understanding of how people actually use their smartphones.
“We will recruit a large representative sample and collect direct, objective measures of how people use their phones,” Allen said. “We will use passive and continuous sensing technology to do this, rather than relying solely on self-reports.”
Researchers will also use participants’ phones to measure various components of well-being, such as sleep and physical activity.
To protect user privacy, the App will allow users to control sensitive data submitted through the App. Participants will also be able to choose to add relevant Fitbit data, such as step count and physical activity. Allen said that “these pieces of data will never be sold or used for advertising.”
“The data collected will be managed according to strict ethical standards and will only be used to inform research and improved products,” he added.
The ultimate goal of the project is to help companies design better products that take mental health to heart.
