A research team at the University of Oregon is using Google's health studies app to study the impact of mobile devices on users' mental health A major researcher pointed out in a blog post that it aims to help enterprises design better products and even promote future education policy-making.
(from: Google blog)
As early as December 2020, Google has launched the health studies application focusing on the research of respiratory diseases such as covid-19.
Interested friends can register to participate, collect and summarize data through the platform, and then see the statistical trend of more comprehensive groups (rather than smaller groups).
The article points out:
Researchers are using the app to help them better understand how people use their mobile phones in real life without requiring research participants to track and report themselves in a less rigorous way.
They hope to find factors that are easy to be ignored in previous studies, such as how users' screen use time affects sleep quality.
In addition, by significantly reducing the workload of volunteers, the health studies platform is expected to attract more people to participate, thus greatly increasing the available data sample size and research coverage.
At the technical level, the researchers disclosed that they will study how people use mobile phones through passive and continuous sensing technology and direct and objective measures.
In terms of data sources, in addition to the well-known sleep and exercise monitoring, health studies has also opened more modules. For example, if you have Fitbit smart bracelet, you can voluntarily choose to share some of the data.
Finally, if you are interested in contributing to digital well-being research, you can first go to the play store to download the health research application (portal) 。
The project is scheduled to start on May 27 (Friday) and last for four weeks, during which the app will track users' mobile phone use and health status.
In terms of data privacy, the official commitment requires the user's full knowledge and consent. The relevant data will be managed in accordance with strict ethical standards, will only be used for research in this area and provide information for building better products, and will never be sold or used for advertising purposes.
Google spokesman iz Conroy said that although the system borrows some of the same application program interfaces (APIs) as Android's built-in digital health system, the data tracking process is collected separately according to a transparent research protocol.