According to Mental Health America (2019), 12.63% of children between the ages of twelve and seventeen experienced at least one major depressive episode in the US during 2018. Twenge et. al (2017) searched for major trends that could be the cause of these astonishing rates. They found that 48% of the adolescents who spent more than 5 hours a day on their phone were prone to having suicidal thoughts. From their peers who kept their selves busy with their phone for just one hour per day, 28% had once thought of suicide. Treatments for mental health problems vary, but the stigma and neglect prevents people from speaking up (Who.int, 2001). Other reasons why mental health diseases remain untreated are limited coverage of insurance, lack of connection between health care systems and the scarcity of mental health care providers (Bakker et. al, 2016).
The digitalization in the health care industry did not leave the mental health segment untouched. Several apps have been developed to improve mental health. Headspace, for example, is my favorite meditation app, but the app does not leave much room for user input. The journaling app Stigma applies word cloud technology to look for frequently recurring words and matches them with emotions. Other apps provide Cognitive Behavioral Training (CBT) and help people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorders (OCD) or addictions (Shelton, n.d.). The real disruption seems to be found in the screening, diagnosing and treating mental illnesses with Artificial Intelligence. Ginger is a chat app that uses an algorithm to analyze the messages to give recommendations and is used in the workplace (Marr, 2019). Quartet Health can be used by the general practitioner to screen the medical history of a patient to find behavioral patterns that could predict or discover an undiagnosed mental health illness. The more these apps are used, the more data on behavioral patterns they can collect to establish healthcare preventing illnesses.
Bakker et. al (2016) found that the mental health apps that can be downloaded by smartphone users are rarely proven to be effective. I also doubt that picking up your phone every five minutes to provide a dozen apps the metrics they need to analyze your mental state would make you feel balanced. On the other hand, I believe the use of Artificial Intelligence in the screening, diagnosing and preventing of mental health illnesses could disrupt the way the care has been offered. I think the actual treatment, however, should not be based exclusively on apps, because real connections are made with real humans, not with an app. What are your thoughts?
References:
Bakker, D., Kazantzis, N., Rickwood, D. and Rickard, N. (2016). Mental Health Smartphone Apps: Review and Evidence-Based Recommendations for Future Developments. JMIR Mental Health, [online] 3(1), p.e7. Available at: https://mental.jmir.org/2016/1/e7/?utm_content=bufferfb966&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Marr, B. (2019). The Incredible Ways Artificial Intelligence Is Now Used In Mental Health. [online] Forbes.com. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2019/05/03/the-incredible-ways-artificial-intelligence-is-now-used-in-mental-health/#5428a74dd02e [Accessed 18 Sep. 2019].
Mental Health America (2019). The state of mental health in America. [online] Mental Health America, p.17. Available at: https://mhanational.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/2019%20MH%20in%20America%20Final.pdf.
Shelton, J. (n.d.). Top 25 Mental Health Apps for 2018: An Alternative to Therapy?. [online] Psycom.net – Mental Health Treatment Resource Since 1986. Available at: https://www.psycom.net/25-best-mental-health-apps [Accessed 18 Sep. 2019].
Twenge, J., Joiner, T., Rogers, M. and Martin, G. (2017). Increases in Depressive Symptoms, Suicide-Related Outcomes, and Suicide Rates Among U.S. Adolescents After 2010 and Links to Increased New Media Screen Time. Clinical Psychological Science, [online] 6(1), pp.3-17. Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2167702617723376
Who.int. (2001). World Health Report. [online] Available at: https://www.who.int/whr/2001/media_centre/press_release/en/
It seems contradicting that mental health apps would be used for mental health issues stemming from the use of mobile phones. Therefore, I also doubt whether it would be an effective form of treatment. However, I do believe that Artificial Intelligence could help in reducing mental ilnesses and catching depressive behaviour early on. Behavioural patterns could be identified and accurate predictions could be made on how people with mental disorders act. Future developments in mental health care could provide interesting solutions, as cases of depression around the world are rising, proving to be a serious public health problem.
Hi Romaana,
Thanks for your post, i thought it was interesting to read! I agree with your opinion that mental health apps are certainly not the solution, especially when referring to the statistic you mentioned correlating time spend on your phone and the number of suicidal thoughts. The solution that i think would be most effective is to help those people suffering with depression to find a purpose in life and become reintegrated in society through person to person interaction. Breaking the cycle of depression is certainly difficult, but an app i don’t see being an effective solution.
However, you also mentioned how AI could be utilised as a predictive tool to diagnose mental illness. I personally like that idea and I imagine that would be a good and necessary application of AI which would add significant value to society.
All the best!
Hi Romaana,
Nice and interesting blogspot! I think it is a really interesting topic. I knew that smartphones and social media are trends which can be very bad for mental health, however the numbers you mentioned made me realize it might be a bigger problem then a lot of people realize. Talking about the applications you mentioned, I truly believe they could work to some extent but it also feels kind of contradicting; people who’s mental health deteriorates because of the use of applications on their smartphone are expected to use this same smartphone to increase their mental health by means of applications. However, I still think it is an interesting development as applications are often more approachable for young people than going for example to see a psychologist. Yet, I truly believe an application can not (yet) replace a psychologist in curing mental illness.
To move over to the subject of AI, I feel a bit like AI detecting mental disorders goes against our nature. Like mentioned above, I would also not trust a robot (yet) to replace a psychologist. If you would ask me now, I would not allow AI to track my mental health. Just because I do not see the technology of AI as something with feelings and empathy, and I think to track mental health not only rational intelligence but also social and emotional intelligence is needed.
However, when I think about AI in a rational way, I understand AI can be more trustworthy than humans in a lot of aspects. Nonetheless, like mentioned in an Article of the guardian, experiments showed that robots making the right judgments is not enough for people. So even if robots would track mental issues perfectly and would make the right judgments, what we want is that these judgments are based on emotional reactions and intuitive responses.
Next to the lack of emotional and intuitive responses of AI, I believe there are a lot of ethical issues regarding the use of AI in mental health care. Some of these important ethical challenges are transparency, privacy, reliability, accountability, inclusiveness and safety (D’Alfonso, 2020). To conclude, I believe AI could spend a role in tracking mental health in the future, but in such a way that ethical issues are considered and emotional reactions and intuitive responses are taken into account.
Sources:
-D’Alfonso, S. 2020. AI in mental health
-Guardian. 2017. Why are we reluctant to trust robots?