Music App combines song recommendations and mental health
08 June 2012
Monash University PhD student, Will Randall, has developed a smart phone app, MuPsych, as part of a study exploring how adolescents use personal music to regulate their emotions.
While listeners enjoy some of their favourites, the app simultaneously collects data. Preliminary findings suggest that factors which influence how people use music to change their state of mind relate to the music itself, the listening context and the individual listener.
A Music Psychology student, Mr Randall said data collected by the MuPsych app could reveal important information about the emotional state of adolescence, which is often associated with emotional unrest and mental health decline.
“Music is an essential part of everyday life for young people, with increased levels of music listening related to adolescent psychosocial development,” Mr Randall said. “My research focus is on adolescent emotion regulation through music use and how this relates to levels of well-being.”
As people listen to their music, MuPsych asks a short series of questions relating to mood, listening context and reasons for listening. Participants also complete psychological surveys on personality, musical experience and well-being.
After using the personal music player for two weeks, participants can access four main features including automatic playlists that suit their current mood, new music suggestions based on previous choices, listening feedback and live music alerts for favourite bands playing locally.
Mr Randall said the app is available until late 2013 allowing researchers continuous collection and analysis of data.
The free app can be downloaded from the MuPsych website.