Watching short videos on your phone can improve mental health

Many people are constantly attached to their mobile phones, using multiple apps for entertainment, to pay bills and get directions. Some would argue phones make people happier—and that’s what researchers are trying to prove in regards to mental health.

Researchers are hoping to take the personalization of phones a step further by monitoring happiness when using them to view positive messages. In a study published by Frontiers in Psychology, researchers used smartphone-based micro-interventions that use psychotherapeutic techniques in the form of short videos to study mood changes of people.

The study included 27 men who were studied over a period of 11 days. All of them watched daily smartphone-based videos that featured viscerosensory attention, emotional imagery, facial expression and contemplative repetition. Using a mood questionnaire, researchers were able to rate user's mood changes before and after viewing.

In total, users viewed 335 interventions with viscerosensory attention (53.1 percent) and contemplative repetition (20.3 percent) topping the list of most viewed interventions. Results showed individuals were in a better mood, calmer and more awake after viewing an intervention. Even though these mood changes were short-term, the evidence showed that viewing these videos improved people’s mental health.

“Taken together, we provided evidence that smartphone-based micro-interventions are well-tolerated and go along with improvements in mood,” concluded Gunther Meinlschmidt, lead author on the study and colleagues. “In line with the precision medicine approach, smartphone-based micro-interventions may represent a promising tool to modify mood in real-world settings.”