News Finding: "This is preliminary work, and it needs to be more thoroughly tested, vetted and replicated before we can safely claim that an algorithm can truly identify markers of depression in Instagram posts," Reece said.
Paper Finding: Our results supported Hypothesis , that markers of depression are observable in Instagram user behavior, and Hypothesis , that these depressive signals are detectable in posts made even before the date of first diagnosis.
News Context: However, Reece warned that the program still needs a lot more fine tuning. "This is preliminary work, and it needs to be more thoroughly tested, vetted and replicated before we can safely claim that an algorithm can truly identify markers of depression in Instagram posts," Reece said. The real promise held by this line of research could be in suicide prevention, Galynker said.
Paper Context: The modest positive correlation of human-rated happiness with the presence and number of faces in a photograph was the only exception to this trend. Our results supported Hypothesis , that markers of depression are observable in Instagram user behavior, and Hypothesis , that these depressive signals are detectable in posts made even before the date of first diagnosis. Human ratings proved capable of distinguishing between Instagram posts made by depressed and healthy individuals (Hypothesis a), but showed little or no correlation with most computational features (Hypothesis b).