PTSD-Monitoring App Captured the Psychological Effects of the Boston Bombing 68
the_newsbeagle writes "This DARPA-funded smartphone app is designed to monitor veterans for signs of depression and PTSD. It screens for signals of psychological distress in a number of ways; for example, the app looks for signs of social isolation (reduced number of phone calls and texts), physical isolation (the phone isn't leaving the house), and sleep disruption (the phone is used in the middle of the night). Interestingly, the company that invented the app was testing it in Boston at the time of the Boston marathon bombing, and reports that the app picked up signals of distress in the days after the attack."
Re:Not sure what's more depressing (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not the phone company it's a company that is working on making issues less stressful and problem resolution more effective through data analysis that people may not knowingly perceive. Really interesting stuff actually.
Re:Not sure what's more depressing (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd say the more depressing is that I see 4 posts by numbered Slashdotters and not one even read the first sentence of the summary.
Here it is again:
This DARPA-funded smartphone app is designed to monitor veterans for signs of depression and PTSD.
Smartphone app, as in, it has to be installed on the phone and records behavior to send off to some user approved (even if by obscure yes/no choice) observer to look for suspicious behavior trends.
There were volunteers, they were in Boston, and the marathon got bombed during the testing phase. A significant portion of the volunteers showed the warning behaviors in the days afterward. This is all in the summary, but I suppose actually reading the whole summary and devising an informed post would take too long. Of course, one of the signs "not leaving the house" was probably due to the not-quite-martial-law that was not-exactly-imposed on the city of Boston for those days.
Re:A city of inactivity (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. Personally, I found the bombing to be less disturbing than the reaction to the bombing, and even more, the reports of how many Bostonians found the actions acceptable.