The Wire

Mobile phones and the Internet aren’t things we usually associate with treating mental illness. But, as with many other new technologies, they’ve been put to some unexpected and interesting new uses. The potential impacts of these new applications are especially significant for young people, who have taken to these technologies so wholeheartedly – with some 85% of people in this age group owning mobiles. At the same time, up to 30% of young people are expected to suffer from depression. Now, Sophie Reed, a research psychologist at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne, has come up with a new way to track adolescent moods. She’s developed a software program that can be loaded onto a young person’s mobile phone. It automatically launches itself several times a day to ask the user what they are doing and how they are feeling. The user then responds in a similar way to typing an sms. Dr Reed told David Huang that she thinks this program is more effective than other methods of keeping track of a young person’s daily activities.