App tracks user’s mood on Internet

The app tracks how the user’s mood changes depending on the website they land on, aiming to protect mental health on the internet

Spotted: It’s long been known that the Internet can have a profound effect on our mental health, and so much so that many of Silicon Valley’s tech titans will no longer allow their children to go online unsupervised. Yet with the coronavirus pandemic forcing many of us to spend a lot of time online, this situation is not getting any better. Enter Misü, a desktop app designed to measure users’ moods while online and notify them if particular websites are triggering stress hormones.

Once installed, Misü takes photos of users periodically while they’re on the internet. The app then uses an algorithm to analyse the images and estimate whether the websites the user has visited is having a positive or negative impact on their mood. Over the course of an eight-hour workday, the app takes between 200 and 400 images. 

The algorithm analyses cues such as a furrowed brow, or tightness in the jaw, to predict how a person is feeling. Misü also develops a real-time score, giving users the ability to see how their mood shifts as they move from site to site. Armed with this knowledge, users can then choose to avoid sites that tend to make them tense or sad.

Founder Dan Seider came up with the idea for the app based on personal experience. He suffered from bipolar disorder and explained that his mother, a psychiatrist and therapist, recommended that he track his mood. He told Springwise that: “Mood tracking has been essential to helping me flourish in life. Doing it manually is tedious, so that’s why I persevered for five years to discover a way to make mood tracked automated.”

Moreover, the Misü app analyses all photos locally on the user’s computer and then deletes them, and does not store users’ personal information, for those worried about data privacy.

At Springwise, we have seen AI used for health tracking in increasingly sophisticated ways. Recent innovations in this space include a mobile game that can provide psychological support to children and an app that offers free counselling. 

Explore more: Health & Wellbeing Innovations