Could your smartphone reveal if you are suffering from depression?

SMARTPHONES can help indicate if their owner is suffering from depression, a study suggested today.

The length of calls and location data from a phone’s GPS system were keys to determining the mood of its user, according to researchers at Northwestern University in Chicago.

They were able to use the information to identify people with depressive symptoms with 87 per cent accuracy, and said that greater phone use meant people were more likely to be depressed.

The average daily usage for depressed people was about 68 minutes — four times more than the 17 minutes typical of non-depressed individuals.

Spending most of your time at home or in fewer locations is also linked to depression.

Report author David Mohr, director of the centre for behavioural intervention technologies at Northwestern University, said: “The significance of this is we can detect if a person has depressive symptoms and the severity of those symptoms without asking them any questions. We now have an objective measure of behaviour related to depression. And we’re detecting it passively. Phones can provide data unobtrusively.”

The smartphone data was found to be more reliable in detecting depression than daily questions the 28 survey participants answered about how sad they were feeling.

While the study, published today in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is too small to be influential by itself, it could add weight to moves to introduce remote monitoring of people with depression.

Professor Mohr, a clinical psychologist, said: “The data showing depressed people tended not to go many places reflects the loss of motivation seen in depression.”

The research team analysed the GPS locations and phone usage of 28 people over two weeks. The sensor tracked GPS locations every five minutes.

Of the participants, 14 did not have any signs of depression and 14 had symptoms ranging from mild to severe depression.

“People are likely, when on their phones, to avoid thinking about things that are troubling,” Profesor Mohr said. “It’s an avoidance behaviour we see in depression.”

Follow Ross Lydall on Twitter: @RossLydall