Understanding Morning Emotions by Analyzing Daily Wake-Up Alarm Usage: Longitudinal Observational Study (Preprint)

Abstract

BACKGROUND Morning emotions can affect daily wellness. Many studies have analyzed daily survey responses to identify factors that affect morning emotions. However, daily emotional monitoring based on survey methods requires additional time and effort from individuals. OBJECTIVE This study aims to identify the daily alarm usage patterns related to morning emotions. METHODS We recruited 373 users of the Alarmy app in the United States and South Korea and surveyed the demographics and usual behaviors related to morning emotions. The participants were asked to describe their morning emotions over two weeks, and we collected their alarm app logs for each day. Finally, we conducted a generalized estimating equation method to identify factors affecting morning emotions. RESULTS The results present that varied alarm usage is related to morning emotions. Alarm set time was positively associated with peaceful or refreshing emotions in the morning. Task-based alarms were related to nervousness. The time to deactivate the alarm after ringing was negatively correlated with happiness. Furthermore, usual behaviors and demographics were related to morning emotions, as in prior studies. CONCLUSIONS The study results reveal that daily alarm usage was related to morning emotions. This shows that using daily alarm logs can facilitate daily emotion monitoring by supplementing survey methods.