Detecting Depression From How (Not What) You Browse 163
New submitter FreedomFirstThenPeac writes "Apparently we can diagnose you as depressed if the mechanics of your internet use fit certain patterns. By using a cleverly embedded questionnaire that classifies the subject as depressed, and by using existing net usage data collection to collect features (variables), researchers at the Missouri University of Science and Technology were able to correctly predict the diagnoses of the questionnaire using the net usage data (PDF). I wonder if this could be a new Firefox plug-in, designed to help parents detect depression in their adolescents by tracking the mechanics (not the sites) and automatically emailing them if their ward is showing increasing signs of depression."
Re:Wow, what a remarkably BAD idea (Score:5, Informative)
Depression is real. There are chemical and electrical changes in the brain.
People like you are why I am still so fucked up. My parents thought like you. When I was a kid I went to a doctor for bronchitis and he told my father that he thought I was depressed. The response was to be yelled at and threatened to be kicked out of the house, which eventually happened. Before I was kicked out my 'treatment' was to talk with a 'life coach' friend of his about my attitude. A psychologist or therapist was never considered because that was pseudoscience to him.
Fast forward 15 years and I was diagnosed with depression, BPD, BDD, and social phobia. This is shit that could have been treated more effectively when I was young. It is shit that the longer you have it the harder it is to change your course. It is also shit that would have been covered under my parent's insurance plans.
Re:Oh great, now science is telling me... (Score:4, Informative)