Abstract

Traditionally, difficulties in measuring human behaviour long-term have led researchers to extrapolate from animal studies rather than attempt to measure human behaviour directly. With the close relationship between most individuals and their smartphones, however, we can now seek to direct study daily human behaviour using mobile applications (App) such as “Know Addiction” (Android App on Google Play). Previous studies support the ability of such Apps to quantify the mental states involved in smartphone addiction. We also predict that the future will see the development of Apps to quantify behaviours relevant to all kinds of mental states and to facilitate cross-cultural studies on the reliability and validity of such measures. Such work will form the basis for an innovative field of “cyber-behaviourism”.Mobile Apps to automatically detect the time of smartphone use, are necessary to improve the accuracy of the assessment of smartphone addiction. We first define the App-recorded parameters and compare the time spent on smartphones recorded by the App “Know Addiction” with self-reported assessment. Then, we consider how to delineate the trend of smartphone use for weeks to months via empirical mode decomposition. Finally, we outline the smartphone addiction and the relevant App-generated parameters. We also proposed the app-incorporated diagnosis, combining both psychiatric interview and app-recorded data. The app-incorporated diagnosis demonstrated substantial accuracy for smartphone addiction diagnosis. In addition, the app-recorded data performed as an accurate screening tool for app-incorporated diagnosis.

Reference

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2. Lin YH, Lin YC, Lin SH, Lee YH, Lin PH, Chiang CL, Chang LR, Yang CC, Kuo TB. To use or not to use? Compulsive behavior and its role in smartphone addiction. Translational Psychiatry. 2017: 7, e1030

3. Lin YH, Lin PH, Chiang CL, Lee YH, Yang CC, Kuo TB. Incorporation of mobile application (App) measures into the diagnosis of smartphone addiction. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. (in press)

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