My first response to moodscope was one of intense scepticism. One of my colleagues mentioned it to me. on the basis of her elevator pitch ("it's a site which let's you track and share your mood") i didn't get it. i didn't see the point. it sounded like mood ring mixed with facebook mixed with a hearty dose of ill conceived confessional self help nonsense. who would want to share their mood with friends so directly? it sounded like one of the depression stories from interviews with hideous men, the beautiful collection of stories by David Foster Wallace, a kind of "look at me, look at my mood, what do you think of me? do you like me? do you...? WELL DO YOU??"
Watching videos of John Cousins (moodscope's creator... here's one), i realised that there was a lot more to it. John (who i have now had the pleasure of meeting at a Quantified Self meet up) is a lovely, sincere and caring person, irrespective of whether Moodscope would work, or would have much of an impact on users, certainly the intention behind it is lovely, sincere and caring. So i decided to give it a go. I don't think of myself as a depressed person, sleep deprived, frowzy when i don't exercise enough, occasionally inexplicably hostile but not depressed, so i approached it with more of a self experimentation mindset. i wanted to know how my mood fluctuated over time, not in a diagnostic sense or with a specific intention to improve my mood (or myself or similar), just out of idle curiosity.
So far I've had a few realisations:
- even though i don't feel depressed, i am depressed. my score is incredibly, repeatedly low. I wonder whether the test they use is actually measuring cynicism or the degree to which someone is an "hater" ( i am a hater, but in the words of Daniel Clowes, haters make better lovers)
-my score varies more dependent on time of day than anything else. i have discovered i start the day full of optimism and confidence and that it only takes a couple of negative interactions to wind me up. this is a bit of a surprise as i always thought i was quite level headed
- the symptoms of having small children are the same as the symptoms of depression
- moodscope works to encourage self reflection. it makes you meditate on yourself and your mental state in a fairly soft and seemingly healthy way. i feel it makes me more self aware without making me self obsessed. this may change. watch this space for utter egomaniac tom.
I'm not sure what i will do with Moodscope next but my intention is to keep tracking. there are a few directions I'm thinking of taking with it. i want to start sharing with my wife, but so far she's ignored my requests. I want to find a way of correlating mood with other things. for me the obvious things would be exercise, diet and alcohol consumption. i'd love to know how my lifestyle impacts on my mood and Moodscope looks like a good tool for doing this.
1 comment:
Wow - thanks for your observations, it is really and rings true a bit with my experience as well. I have also been using moodscope for a couple months now (after I saw you using it - monkey see/monkey do) and have a similar kind of feeling - although I have to say one of the main motivations for using it was a growing fear that my cynicism/hater attitude could well be a symptom of depression.
I have managed to share my scores daily with my boyfriend who does look at them from time to time, it is kind of way to keep in touch throughout the day and I think it gives him a way to prepare for my mood when I come home later. I respond well to having little wins - it only takes a few moments of success to make me feel good about the day...he can easily tell if that has been the case.
My gripe with moodscope is that there is not enough of an option to sort information that seemingly should be available. If as you hypothesis there is a correlation between time of day (which I expect for myself as well) then the program should be able to reflect this. Also, I would love to see the big picture (over a month, a year if it comes to that)
At the same time, I do respect the simplicity of the application - it doesn't dwell too heavily on past responses or require any immense retrospective analysis - rather it is the act of actually doing the test and thinking about my mood in the moment that is most powerful. Also the email reminders come with lovely stories (they are different every day) and I find them to be quite uplifting and inspiring.
I have been using a similar application called Mappiness (http://www.mappiness.org.uk/) which has so far revealed where / when / what I am doing when I report being the happiness. So far it has accurately revealed that I don't like cooking and although I browse the net a lot, it doesn't necessarily make me happy. I am apparently happiest eating (joy), commuting and being outside around animals. I would suggest this app as a good supplement if you have access to it.
Also, sorry for commandeering your blog with my experience! I don't/won't have a blog of my own :)so feel free to delete!
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