A mobile app for tracking a person's mental health hopes to reduce suicide rates. As part of the project called "How is the world feeling?", the app is planned to collect emotions of people from all over the world in a span of one week.
The project is an initiative of Australian-based Spur Projects, and is said to be the world's largest real-time, mental health survey which happens on Oct. 10-16. The survey is to collect over 70 million emotions, which will grant an unprecedented "understanding of metal health issues across an extremely vast range of demographics and geography."
Users who opt to participate in the survey may download the free app from the App Store or Google Play. All data is open-source and anyone can use the information. All data is anonymous and no personal information is collected from the participant.
The app, also called "How is the World Feeling?", opens on a home screen which asks how a person is feeling at that moment. There are six choices: happy, sad, angry, anxious, powerful and peaceful.
After making a choice, the person is then asked a few more details such as how strongly he feels the emotion, what he is doing and whether he is alone or with others.
The app then records each emotion for the next seven days. It is available in nine languages, including English, Spanish, Chinese and Dutch.
The project plans to release a report after the seven-day survey.
From the project's website:
"Throughout the project, we'll also be formally following and documenting the lives of seven people - one on each continent. These case studies provide an in-depth look into micro-emotions and explore the range of emotions we experience, not when significant events occur, but in every day life."
Suicide is a major health problem that's not often talked about. It is the 10th leading cause of death in the US, with over 47,000 deaths each year.
