Using Mobile Sensing Data to Assess Stress: Associations with Perceived and Lifetime Stress, Mental Health, Sleep, and Inflammation

Byrne, Marann; Lind, Monika Neff; Horn, Sarah R.; Mills, Kathryn L.; Nelson, Benjamin W; Barnes, Melissa L.; Slavich, George M.; Allen, Nicholas

doi:10.31234/osf.io/z85qj

Cited by 4 publications

References 53 publications

(58 reference statements)

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Reintroducing the Effortless Assessment Research System (EARS)

Lind¹,

Kahn²,

Crowley³

et al. 2023

JMIR Ment Health

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This paper reintroduces the Effortless Assessment Research System (EARS), 4 years and 10,000 participants after its initial launch. EARS is a mobile sensing tool that affords researchers the opportunity to collect naturalistic, behavioral data via participants’ naturalistic smartphone use. The first section of the paper highlights improvements made to EARS via a tour of EARS’s capabilities—the most important of which is the expansion of EARS to the iOS operating system. Other improvements include better keyboard integration for the collection of typed text; full control of survey design and administration for research teams; and the addition of a researcher-facing EARS dashboard, which facilitates survey design, the enrollment of participants, and the tracking of participants. The second section of the paper goes behind the scenes to describe 3 challenges faced by the EARS developers—remote participant enrollment and tracking, keeping EARS running in the background, and continuous attention and effort toward data protection—and how those challenges shaped the design of the app.

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Reintroducing the Effortless Assessment Research System (EARS)

Lind¹,

Kahn²,

Crowley³

et al. 2023

JMIR Ment Health

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Reintroducing the Effortless Assessment Research System (EARS) (Preprint)

Lind¹,

Kahn²,

Crowley³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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UNSTRUCTURED This paper re-introduces the Effortless Assessment Research System (EARS), four years and 4,000 participants after its initial launch. EARS is a mobile sensing tool that affords researchers the opportunity to collect naturalistic, behavioral data via participants’ normal smartphone use. The first section of the paper highlights improvements made to EARS via a tour of EARS’s capabilities across iOS and Android. The most important improvement is the expansion of EARS to iOS. Other improvements include better keyboard integration for the collection of typed text, full control of survey design and administration for research teams, and the addition of a researcher-facing EARS dashboard, which facilitates survey design, enrollment of participants, and tracking of participants. The second section of the paper goes behind the scenes to describe three challenges faced by the EARS developers –remote participant enrollment and tracking, keeping EARS running on participant phones, and continuous attention and effort toward data protection– and how those challenges shaped the design of the app.

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Facilitators and Barriers to Teachers’ Engagement with Consumer Technologies for Stress Management: A Qualitative Study (Preprint)

Manning¹,

Blandford²,

Edbrooke‐Childs³

2023

Preprint

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BACKGROUND Consumer technology is increasingly being adopted to support personal stress management, including by teachers. Multi-disciplinary research has contributed some knowledge of design and features that can help detect and manage workplace stress. There is less understanding however of what facilitates engagement with ubiquitous ‘off-the-shelf’ technologies, particularly in a specific occupational setting. An understanding of features that facilitate or inhibit technology use, and the influences of contexts on the manner of interaction, could improve teachers’ stress management opportunities. OBJECTIVE The aim of the study was to investigate interaction features that facilitated or inhibited use of four consumer technologies chosen by teachers for stress management, as well as the influence of the educational contexts. We also examined how wellbeing technology use could be better supported in the school. METHODS The choice of consumer technologies was framed for teachers according to stress-management strategy and digital features. A longitudinal study intended for six weeks in the summer term (2020) was extended into the autumn term for up to 27 weeks so working from home in the summer could be contrasted with being back in school, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Teachers chose to use either a Withings smartwatch or Wysa, Daylio or Teacher Tapp Apps. Two semi-structured interviews and online surveys were conducted with 8 teachers in England in the summer term, and 6 of them took part in a third such interview in the autumn term. Interviews were analysed thematically. RESULTS Technology elements and characteristics such as passive data collation, brevity of interaction, discreet appearance, reminders and data visualisation were described by teachers as facilitators. Lack of instructions and information on features, connectivity, extended interaction requirements and non-differentiation of activity and exercise data were described as barriers. Meso-contextual barriers to engagement were also reported, particularly when teachers were back on school premises, including temporal constraints, social stigma and lack of private space to destress. Teachers had ideas for feature improvements and how educational leadership normalising teachers’ stress management with consumer technologies could benefit the school culture. CONCLUSIONS Having pre-selected their stress management strategies, teachers were able to harness design features to support themselves over an extensive period. There could be an important role for digital interventions as part of teachers’ stress management which school leadership would need to leverage to maximise their potential. The findings add to the holistic understanding of situated self-care and should inform developers’ considerations for occupational digital stress support.

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Using Mobile Sensing Data to Assess Stress: Associations with Perceived and Lifetime Stress, Mental Health, Sleep, and Inflammation

Cited by 4 publications

References 53 publications

Reintroducing the Effortless Assessment Research System (EARS)

Reintroducing the Effortless Assessment Research System (EARS)

Reintroducing the Effortless Assessment Research System (EARS) (Preprint)

Facilitators and Barriers to Teachers’ Engagement with Consumer Technologies for Stress Management: A Qualitative Study (Preprint)

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