Freethink: Reading Your Digital Signature to Detect Depression, Parkinson’s

Read the full story by science writer Teresa Carey in Freethink

For starters, I forgot the alphabet. 

It was one of those weeks where I missed every deadline already — unable to focus on work or anything else. I was instructed to quickly touch alternating letters and numbers in order: 1A, 2B, 3C, 4D, 5E, 6... What is the next letter? The stopwatch ticked on, and I imagined my multitasking score dropping. (Oh well, multitasking isn't a thing anyway, right?) 

I'm a volunteer for a study that uses the BiAffect app to screen my virtual mental health. Created by a University of Illinois team, BiAffect is a phone app that monitors mood and how it impacts cognition. The study is built around the theory that personal devices, like fitness trackers, phones or smartwatches, act as a digital proxy for human behavior. 

This emerging scientific field is called digital phenotyping...

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