It Doesn't Read Your Mind.....Yet

(Images from Frontiers in Psychology)

Apple is pouring billions of dollars into developing medical applications for its devices. Although the emphasis continues to be on wearables, the iPhone is at the center of the push into mental health.

Apple Inc. is working on technology to help diagnose depression and cognitive decline, aiming for tools that could expand the scope of its burgeoning health portfolio...

Using an array of sensor data that includes mobility, physical activity, sleep patterns, typing behavior and more, researchers hope they can tease out digital signals associated with the target conditions so that algorithms can be created to detect them reliably....

The research projects are still at early stages, and may never lead to new device features...While prior academic studies have shown some evidence that people with certain mental-health conditions use their digital devices differently than others, it remains to be seen if reliable algorithms can be created to detect the conditions...

If they are successful, Apple and its partners could improve the detection of the conditions, which affect tens of millions of people world-wide. But the extent of user tracking that may be required could spark privacy concerns. To address them, Apple aims for algorithms that work on users’ devices and don’t send the data to Apple servers...

The pandemic drove an increase in mental-health-related complaints. The percentage of adults reporting anxiety or depression-related symptoms reached 41% in January, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, nearly quadruple the early-2019 figure. Mild cognitive impairment, which can develop into dementia, affects around 5 million Americans over 60 years old, estimates the Alzheimer’s Association...

UCLA has said its research studying signs of stress, anxiety and depression began with a pilot phase last fall tracking Apple Watch and iPhone data from 150 people and will continue with a main phase tracking similar data for 3,000 people starting this year.

UCLA researchers will track data from the iPhone’s video camera, keyboard and audio sensors, and data from the watch related to movement, vital signs and sleep, according to the documents and people familiar with the study. The data that may be used includes analysis of participants’ facial expressions, how they speak, the pace and frequency of their walks, sleep patterns, and heart and respiration rates. They may also measure the speed of their typing, frequency of their typos and content of what they type, among other data points, according to the people familiar with the research and the documents...

Biogen and Apple said in January they are collaborating on a study to use the iPhone and Apple Watch to track cognitive function over time and identify mild cognitive impairment, a condition that can develop into Alzheimer’s. The two-year study aims to follow about 20,000 participants—half of them at high risk of cognitive impairment—and will use device data in a way similar to the UCLA mental-health research, according to the documents and people familiar with the matter. The work follows a 2019 feasibility study that showed that 31 adults with cognitive impairment exhibited different behavior on their Apple devices than healthy older adults.

Biogen is collaborating on the study because it hopes it can help Apple develop an iPhone feature to detect mild cognitive impairment early and encourage relevant users to seek care earlier, according to a person familiar with the matter. The company will compare the data against standard tests of brain health including traditional cognitive assessments and scans that track plaque buildup in the brain, according to the documents and the person familiar with the work.

Biogen’s drug Aduhelm, which costs about $56,000 a year, was approved earlier this year by the FDA for people with early-stage Alzheimer’s.

Diagnosing mental health conditions is difficult even for trained clinicians who are able to interact with patients in person. An iPhone algorithm that matches facial expressions, eye movements, etc. with depression or early-stage dementia can be beneficial. If a mental health app is able to screen millions of people quickly, and users are made aware that a positive reading is private, should be checked out and does not necessarily denote illness, that should lessen user concerns.

Note: it would be ironic if the same smartphone whose use triggers depression in teen-age girls is the device that warns that the user may be depressed.

Facebook Knows Instagram Is Toxic for Teen Girls, Company Documents Show

“Thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse,” the researchers said in a March 2020 slide presentation posted to Facebook’s internal message board, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. “Comparisons on Instagram can change how young women view and describe themselves”....

“Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression,” said another slide. “This reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups.”

Among teens who reported suicidal thoughts, 13% of British users and 6% of American users traced the desire to kill themselves to Instagram, one presentation showed.