Empower Research Lab

Empower Research Lab

Dilemma of disclosure (Sprout extension)

Managing mental health confidentiality with mood-tracking apps that enhance emotional intelligence without requiring condition disclosure.

Description

Mental health is a serious issue that affects people of all ages, but is especially prevalent amongst college age youth. In the 2020-2021 school year, researchers found that around 60% of college students met the criteria for at least one mental health condition, such as major depression or generalized anxiety disorder. Many digital interventions have been innovated in order to help address this issue. These range in type and functionality from teletherapy to medication tracking applications. Some of these digital interventions include social features that allow users to interact with other users, friends, family, or doctors; however, having social features in a mental health application inherently requires some form of disclosure of having a condition, creating, what we call, _the dilemma of disclosure_. This project uses a mood tracking mobile app that supports privacy and incentivizes use by rewarding tracking behaviors with growth of a garden visualization. By keeping users in touch with their current emotional state, the approach aims to increase emotional intelligence and broader mental health.

Publications

The Dilemma of Disclosure: Designing Interpersonal Informatics Tools for Mood Tracking

**Daniel Westphal**, **Elizabeth Murnane**

Dartmouth College Dartmouth Digital Commons - Undergraduate Theses

health

mood tracking

smartphone

qualitative analysis

Date

2022 - 2023

Keywords

mental health

students

mood tracking

smartphones

D-Pine
Murnane Research Group at Dartmouth College | Contact: empowerlab@dartmouth.edu | Last updated: March 2025
Thayer School of Engineering