Your Instagram Photos Can Predict Your Mental Health, Says New Study
Have you ever wondered what your Instagram photos tell about
you? Yes, we can say things such as a particular Instagrammer is a foodie or a
traveler, by looking at their photos.
But a new study says your Instagram photos can or show your
mental health state. Researchers can find markers of depression by analyzing
the filters of their photos. They can even predict if someone will be diagnosed
with clinical depression.
The paper "Instagram photos reveal predictive markers
of depression" was authored by Andrew G Reecer and Christopher M Danforth,
and was published on August 8, 2017. The authors by Andrew G Reecer and
Christopher M Danforth are from the Harvard University and the University of
Vermont respectively.
They say there is a good reason to prioritize research into
Instagram analysis for health screening. Instagram members currently contribute
almost 100 million new posts per day. And Instagram's rate of new users joining
has recently outpaced Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and even Facebook.
The researchers used Instagram data from 166 individuals.
They applied machine learning tools to successfully identify markers of
depression. They then computationally extracted statistical features from
43,950 participant Instagram photos, using color analysis, metadata components,
and algorithmic face detection. "Resulting models outperformed general
practitioners' average unassisted diagnostic success rate for depression",
says the paper.
These results held even when the analysis was restricted to
posts made before depressed individuals were first diagnosed. They even included
measures of hue, saturation, and brightness in the analysis, and tracked the
use of Instagram filters in the study.
"People in our sample who were depressed tended to post
photos that, on a pixel-by-pixel basis, were bluer, darker and grayer on average
than healthy people", said Andrew Reece to the New York Times. The study
found that depressed Instagrammers used fewer Instagram filters and generally
tended to choose 'Inkwell' filter. Inkwell filter which drains photos of its
color, making it black-and-white. This led to the conclusion that depressed
individuals preferred darker, grayer colors.
This is substantiated by another study done by Barrick,
Taylor, and Correa, titled " Color sensitivity and mood disorders: biology
or metaphor?". They found a positive correlation between
self-identification with depression and a tendency to perceive one's
surroundings as gray or lacking in color.
On the contrary, healthy users tended to prefer the filter
'Valencia'. 'Valencia' lightens a photos' tint, as they generally preferred
brighter, more vivid colors.
