SMS tracking your moods

If only I'd read about this last week. Would have been a perfect iPhone entry for Grand Rounds over at Shrink Rap (link in sidebar).

A $1.88 million Federal Government grant has been awarded to the Black Dog Institute and the University of New South Wales (UNSW) to undertake a program to enable Australians to manage their mental health problems via mobile phone and the internet.

The idea is that people will be able to track their status on a daily basis in areas such as mood, sleep, activities, medication, physical activity as well as drug and alcohol abuse. Aimed at adolescents and adults with or at risk of developing depression, anxiety or stress, the first stage of the program will be the internet version, to be followed by the mobile phone version.

Dr Judy Proudfoot, Senior Research Fellow at the Black Dog Institute and the School of Psychiatry at the University of New South Wales, explains that information is fed back to the users on how they are going and alerts are sent when things aren’t going well, along with links to appropriate self-help tools. In this way, the program parallels traditional face-to-face therapy, where people are asked to monitor their symptoms and activities.

A timely project. It will interesting to see how it turns out, particularly in terms of management of confidentiality because, quite coincidentally, someone recently mentioned that they do this kind of thing with their therapist between sessions. In contrast to the Black Dog project, they don't receive any feedback or response until the next session. Initially, it raised questions of boundaries and dependency for me, particularly when they said they would demand that any other therapist (they were thinking of changing) also do this. I didn't even stop to consider the unthinkable which happened when the therapist passed his/her phone along to someone else (not a therapist). All journalling entries then went to this third person who didn't pass them on. As you can imagine, the potential for distress in that situation proved significant.

Miss Bimbo

With due supervision, there are many useful resources on the internet for children.

Miss Bimbo isn't one of them.

Miss Bimbo offers the chance to 'become the most famous, beautiful, sought after bimbo across the globe!' In the game, players find a cool place to live, a job, shop for the latest fashions, become a socialite, date famous 'hotties' and, more worrying, resort to medications (diet pills) or plastic surgery in a bid to becoming the reigning bimbo.

While the site warns registrants must get their parents permission if they're under 18, there's nothing to stop any child registering. In fact, the site is targeted at the 9-16 age group.

Concerned about possible impact on body image and associated eating patterns, welfare groups are understandably up in arms. Read here, here and here for starters.

Bill Hibberd, of parents' rights group Parentkind, quoted in the Times article, says the game sends a dangerous message to young girls.

"It is one thing if a child recognizes it as a silly and

stupid game but the danger is that a nine-year-old

fails to appreciate the irony and sees the Bimbo as

a cool role model. Then the game becomes a

hazard and a menace."

However, the creators of "Miss Bimbo" claim it is "harmless fun." As reported in the Times article, Nicolas Jacquart, the 23-year-old French web designer who created it, denies it's a bad influence for young children, saying they learn to take care of their bimbos and that the missions and goals are morally sound and teach children about the real world.

Right. That's okay then.

Of course, while registration is free, there's nothing like the money being charged to players for text messages to buy bimbo dollars/goods to skew your judgement.

Psychological research online

I just wanted to bring the Psychological Research on the Net site to your attention. Hosted by Hanover University in the U. S., this site provides links to all manner of psychological studies being conducted online. It's a great resource for psychologists, allowing access to a far greater number of potential subjects than otherwise might be possible.

Of course, it's not applicable for all kinds of research and it does come with certain risks. The internet provides anonymity, people can say whatever they want.

Nonetheless, there's some really interesting studies in progress. I often (when in procrastination mode) wander over to see if there's any studies of interest that I can contribute to.

I used this site to recruit subjects for both my undergraduate (cybercondria) and postgraduate (rumination) research (in addition to more traditional methods) and I was very appreciative of the people who took the time to complete my studies in this manner.

So, if you have time to spare, why not make a cup of tea or coffee and wander on over. You could be contributing to the next big breakthrough in psychology!