Beyond Social Media: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Other Internet and Mobile Phone Applications in a Community Psychiatry Population

Abstract

Objective Popular media applications have been shown to benefit people with severe mental illness by facilitating communication and social support, helping patients cope with or manage symptoms, and providing a way to monitor or predict mental health states. While many studies of technology use by individuals with severe mental illness have focused primarily on use of social media, this study provides additional information about use of Internet applications such as blogs, wikis (websites that allow collaborative editing of content and structure by users), video games, and Skype by a community psychiatry population. Methods All English-speaking patients attending an outpatient program during a 4-week period in 2011 (N=274) were surveyed about their technology use and demographic information; 189 patients provided demographic data and comprised the sample. Results Among Internet users (n=112), rates of use of message boards, wikis, Skype, role-playing games, and blogs ranged from 26.8% to 34.8%. Among mobile phone users (n=167), 41.4% used their phones to access the Internet and 25.3% used Twitter on their phones. In multivariate analysis, patients who had attended or completed college had much greater odds of accessing the Internet on mobile phones. Older patients were much less likely to access the Internet or use Twitter. Conclusions Our findings indicate that use of several popular forms of media is not uncommon in a community psychiatry population, but that rates of use differ on the basis of age and education. As the digital divide between people with severe mental illness and the general population is lessening, further research is needed to determine how to best leverage various types of media to support mental health recovery and complement clinical care.

Digital tools for the assessment of pharmacological treatment for depressive disorder: State of the art

“…Though conceptually different, digital phenotyping and digital phenotype are both relevant when using digital data in understanding depression treatment and treatment response for clinical and research purposes. Data for digital phenotyping are collected through smartphone apps, and digital tools such as smartwatches or other smart applications; the whole of interconnected smart tools or Internet of Things ( Goumagias et al, 2021 ), but also regular text messaging, social media posts ( Sinnenberg et al, 2017 ), web searches, blogs, and chatbots can be informa-tive ( Colder Carras et al, 2018 ;Torous et al, 2021 ). The nature of digital data can be diverse and can include the level of physical activity, actigraphy and circadian rhythm ( Minaeva et al, 2020 ).…”

“…Different features of depression can be captured by different digital tools in a context of digital phenotyping. This table highlights some examples, the traits they measure and their phenotypic correlates, throughout the different stages of pharmacological treatment ( Ayers et al, 2017 ;Birk and Mandryk, 2019 ;Bernert et al, 2017 ;Büscher et al, 2020 ;Brietzke et al, 2019 ;Cohen et al, 2020a ;Colder Carras et al, 2018 ;Cho et al, 2019 ;Cheng et al, ;Dissing et al, 2018 ;Doryab et al, 2019 ;Faurholt-Jepsen et al, 2013Henry et al, 2020;Wallace et al, 2017 ;Insel, 2018 ;Izmailova et al, 2018 ;Jacobson et al, ;Kalantarian et al, 2016 ;Kivelä et al, 2019 ;Kramer et al, 2014 ;Minaeva et al, 2020 ;Pennebaker et al, 2003 ;Pratap et al, 2019 ;Perna et al, 2020 ;Pham et al, 2022 ;Philip et al, 2020;Vaidyam et al, 2019 ;Rohatagi et al, 2016 ;Stange et al, 2018 ;Sinnenberg et al, 2017 ;Sano et al, 2018 ;Sachan, 2018 ;Torous et al, 2021 ;Washington et al, ;Widdershoven et al, 2019 ;Yoshikawa et al, 2021 ;Zhou et al, 2022 ;Zulueta et al, 2018 ;Zijp et al, 2019 ).…”

mHealth for Young Adults with Early Psychosis: User Preferences and Their Relationship to Attitudes About Treatment-Seeking

“…Thanks to their accessibility and potential for maintaining user privacy, digital technologies may help reduce barriers to treatment resources—and potentially DUP—for young adults with early psychosis. Individuals with early psychosis commonly go online to access psychoeducation (Colder Carras et al, 2018 ; Lal et al, 2018 ), social support, and increasingly synchronous (i.e., involving immediate bidirectional communication, e.g., teletherapy) and asynchronous (i.e., involving time-lagged interaction, e.g., texting interventions) mental health interventions (Camacho et al, 2019 ; Firth & Torous, 2015 ). Mobile health (mHealth), a type of digital health using mobile devices, may have particular benefits for this population.…”