
Researchers have trained a machine to spot depression on Instagram - pmcpinto
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602208/how-an-algorithm-learned-to-identify-depressed-individuals-by-studying-their-instagram
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denzil_correa
Previous Discussion

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12278722](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12278722)

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dang
Good catch; thanks.

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Bartweiss
These are interesting results, and some factors like "number of likes" have
pretty intuitive correlations with happiness.

The color thing makes me wonder about confounders, though - without filters a
photographer in Norway will get more dark, monochrome photos than one in
Jamaica. And sure enough, the Norwegian is more likely to be depressed. Is it
possible that some of these variables are proxies for seasonal affective
disorder and regions with high risk of depression?

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kwhitefoot
Do you have some numbers for the Norwegians are more depressed than Jamaicans
statement that control for the other differences between the populations?

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Bartweiss
Nope, I wasn't trying to assert that they are. My point was just that you can
'predict' depression to a limited extent by knowing where people live, and
that the features of (outdoor, unfiltered) photos are a proxy for where people
live. That's a pattern that applies at the country level, without controlling
for anything.

S.A.D. is a thing, and there's an argument that depression risk is higher in
cold, sunless places, but I'll leave more-knowledgeable people than me to have
that discussion.

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dmatthewson
So out of 170 study participants found on the internet, of whom those with any
disclosed history of depression were removed, 70 were found to be clinically
depressed on the basis of a screening questionnaire
([http://cesd-r.com/](http://cesd-r.com/)). That's 41% of the sample.

