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Biology 1615-1616
The scientific article I have chosen to discuss for my final paper is How People with
Serious Mental Illness use Smartphones, Mobile Apps, and Social Media. This particular
article was written by John A. Naslund, Kelly A. Aschbrenner, and Stephen J. Bartels in
2016. This article was written based on observations and studies done at Dartmouth
College, New Hampshire. Research has shown an increase in use of mobile devices and
mental illness, but it has been unknown what these individuals are doing with the
technology. The purpose of this study was to investigate how people with mental
illnesses and receive help from mental health centers use technology such as social
These authors surveyed people with serious mental illness to uncover their use of
technology. The criteria were that participants must be 21 years of age or older,
diagnosed with one or more of the following mental health disorders: major depressive
excluded for the following: lived in nursing homes or institutionalized, suffered from
substance use at the time, or were unable to speak English. The authors pooled
participants from three New Hampshire mental health centers and asked them to
had bipolar disorder, and 26% had some form of a schizophrenic disorder. The mean age
of participants was 47.1 years of age, with 60% of them being female. 93% of the people
involved in taking the survey claimed they owned cellphones, 78% use instant messaging
and 71% used social media. 30% of the individuals with internet access used an app
designed to help with health or wellness. 24% of those with internet access admitted to
posting and/or searching for health information. This survey has demonstrated that
individuals with mental illnesses use technology comparably to the general population.
About 18% more of the general population own smartphones, which has been determined
to be because 80% of the participants were unemployed. This experiment has similar
findings to previous surveys and studies in the same field. All of which have shown that
there are increases of mobile device ownership and technology use in those with a mental
illness.
This study was conducted with a very small sample size, so the numbers could be skewed
in any direction. This study also lacked racial and ethnic diversity, and was as constrained
to New Hampshire only. Lastly, the study required participates to be enrolled in lifestyle
interventions, which may suggest they were interested in their health prior to the study.
Even though there a few limitations, this research did provide new information that has
proven useful in the extremely large study of mental health and technology.