Tomorrow (January 1st), millions of people will wake up with their sore heads full of New Year resolutions to achieve more fulfilling, less stressful lives. Now, researchers are developing a data-gathering mobile platform to help identify the causes of stress for individuals and encourage people to build healthier, happier lifestyles – something that could become a preventative measure for a huge number of medical conditions.
Between use of a phone’s inbuilt sensors and monitoring from local sources, the Android Remote Sensing app, or AIRS, can gather a huge amount of data – from environmental aspects such as location, weather, noise levels, even vicinity devices to gauge crowds, to social aspects such as calendar events and communication spikes in email, text and calls – providing a startlingly informed account of a person’s day.
This automatic recording is coupled with the ability to add emotional data by updating your mood through a series of emoticons, along with text annotations. ECG or heart rate sensors can also be used to show physiological reactions.
All this feeds into a person’s unique life “narrative” to determine what the researchers describe as “meaningful events” – those combinations which trigger stress and strong emotion.
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Image: AIRS widgets on the Android home screen
Credit: Dirk Trossen
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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Can your phone double up as your life-coach?
31 December 2012
Researchers are developing a smartphone platform that enables careful monitoring of lifestyle to pinpoint and help avert triggers for stress and negative emotion.