PSYCHIATRY IN THE DIGITAL AGE (JS LUO, SECTION EDITOR) New Measures of Mental State and Behavior Based on Data Collected From Sensors, Smartphones, and the Internet Tasha Glenn & Scott Monteith # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014 Abstract With the rapid and ubiquitous acceptance of new technologies, algorithms will be used to estimate new mea- sures of mental state and behavior based on digital data. The algorithms will analyze data collected from sensors in smartphones and wearable technology, and data collected from Internet and smartphone usage and activities. In the future, new medical measures that assist with the screening, diagnosis, and monitoring of psychiatric disorders will be available despite unresolved reliability, usability, and privacy issues. At the same time, similar non-medical commercial measures of mental state are being developed primarily for targeted advertising. There are societal and ethical implica- tions related to the use of these measures of mental state and behavior for both medical and non-medical purposes. Keywords Remote monitoring . E-mental health . Smartphone . Behavioral targeting . Emotion recognition Introduction Today, psychiatrists rely on patient history and observation, objective data such as laboratory tests, and clinical judgment to diagnose mental illness and assess treatment. There is renewed emphasis on finding additional objective measures to assist with these challenges [1, 2]. A biomarker is an objective measure of a normal biological process, pathogenic processes, or response to a therapeutic intervention [3, 4]. Categories of potential psychiatric biomarkers include genet- ic, proteins or other molecules, or neuroimaging findings [1, 5, 6]. With the rapid emergence and acceptance of digital tech- nologies, alternative measures of mental state and behavior are being developed for screening, diagnosis, and monitoring. In contrast to symptoms reported by patients directly to psychi- atrists, these measures will be based on data collected from diverse sensors within smartphones, devices, and wearable technology, as well as data collected from smartphone and Internet usage and activities. Algorithms will be used to analyze the collected data to estimate mental health and be- havior. In the future, the new measures of mental state and behavior will be available not only from regulated products with scientifically demonstrated clinical utility, but also from unregulated applications aimed at consumers and businesses. Regardless of whether these alternative measures are consid- ered biomarkers, the new measures are coming and will impact psychiatry. The Coming Age of Pervasive Healthcare Ubiquitous computing and ubiquitous communications are behind the upcoming measures of mental state and behavior. In 1991, Mark Weiser of Xerox PARC noted that “the most profound technologies are those that disappear” and predicted that computing elements would become so ubiquitous that no one would notice their presence [7]. We are quickly moving toward that vision [8] as about 5 % of man-made objects now contain embedded microprocessors [9]. Cell phones are viewed as such an essential part of life that many feel uncom- fortable or inadequate without them [10, 11]. Ubiquitous communications, or the ability to communicate anytime and This article is part of the Topical Collection on Psychiatry in the Digital Age T. Glenn ChronoRecord Association, Inc., Fullerton, CA 92834, USA S. Monteith (*) Michigan State University College of Human Medicine Traverse City Campus, 1400 Medical Campus Drive, Traverse City, MI 49684, USA e-mail: monteit2@msu.edu Curr Psychiatry Rep (2014) 16:523 DOI 10.1007/s11920-014-0523-3