Blog 06: Affect as Information

Mental health has always been a topic which lacked attention and often sidelined from focus compared to physical health. The overarching factors which affect an individual's mental health are considered to be the social factors. Now that we are spending more time online than ever, it is pivotal to study the effects online social behaviors might have on individuals mental health. Here’s where the mental health / social connection perspective for affective computing comes in. Psychology being a wide area of study possesses various aspects to deal with mental health in an online setting. With the ever evolving data era like this there are various factors and data elements which can be considered to assess mental states of humans. The paper “Designing Mental Health Technologies that Support the Social Ecosystem of College Students” puts light on the gap in literature for digital mental health. This study found that social connections played a very important role in a student's mental health.  The authors discussed the influential factors like f known peers, and the ancillary roles of unknown peers and non-peers (e.g., faculty, family) can contribute towards developing tools to address common mental health problems. 

Moving on, I learned that bio signals are one way which enables analyzing the psychological data to address one’s mental health. Bio signals are any signals in living beings that can be continually measured and monitored. Talking about the main uses, bio signals are used to gain insights about one’s physiological, pathophysiological, and emotional states. With the advancements of technology today these bio signals can be recorded easily with the help of wearable technologies and various body embedded sensors. 

Today, communications are happening over technology more often than ever. To perform effective communication it’s very important for an individual to accurately convey feelings to others.  The technology could be a barrier in some cases for expressing one’s feelings. The first paper which I studied this week was named “Animo: Sharing Bio signals on a smartwatch for Lightweight Social Connection.“ which focused on overcoming the challenge to convey feelings over technology. The authors made use of bio signals as a new way to communicate. Bio signals which are known to change according to our physical and emotional responses showed that they could be used to establish a better connection for understanding.  By developing Animo, an avatar on fitbit which worked as an instant notification mechanism to nudge another person. Animo contributed towards identifying stressful moments for an individual and their contact linked with Animo. 

Both the studies suggested ways in which mental health can be taken care of with help of technological advancements. These practices could contribute towards helping individuals express themselves precisely. I also see a number of other benefits by implementing this in the recovery process for healing patients suffering from mental health issues.

 

References:

[1]Animo: Sharing Biosignals on a Smartwatch for Lightweight Social Connection

[2]Designing Mental Health Technologies that Support the Social Ecosystem of College Students