Study: Your Instagram posts can reveal if you’re clinically depressed

Depression is horrifyingly common. According to the UK mental health charity Mind, it affects 3.3 in 100 people. Exacerbating the matter, many sufferers struggle to obtain a formal diagnosis, which is vital to receiving further help. Could technology help as an early-warning mechanism? One research paper, published in EPJ Data Science by academics Andrew G Reece and Christopher M Danforth, looks at if Instagram usage patterns can be indicative of depression. Reece and Danforth used machine learning tools to analyze almost 44,000 Instagram posts from 166 individuals, paying close attention to color usage, metadata components, and face detection. Separate studies have shown…

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