This week I tried a set of apps meant to help combat anxiety and depression this week. I found them in a press release from Northwestern University while on my hunt for decent research to present to you for Monday posts. You can read about the apps a bit more here and here. The article points out that the app is especially useful now, during the Coronovirus pandemic, because more people are suffering mental illness and everyone has reduced contact with their support networks.
I've done a similar app review with Woebot, and also Wysa in a less thorough manner, but neither really helped me that much. Which isn't to say either app isn't helpful overall, it's more that they were geared towards different groups than me, specifically.
At any rate, I opted to try Intellicare because the suite of apps interested me, and because after a very careful examination, it seems Intellicare does not sell your personal data or even share it unless demanded by law. Their privacy policy wasn't in plainspeak, but neither was it particularly long or onerous to read. So that was something.
Day To Day, the app that teaches coping skills and gives information on techniques and things to try during the day. I chose to try this one.
Daily Feats, the app that helps you celebrate your accomplishments and prods you to do some basic self-care. I chose to try this one as well.
Thought Challenger, the app that helps you challenge negative thoughts and control your mood. I don't currently suffer a lot of negative thoughts other than boomerang memories (and even those are rare), so I did not download this one.
My Mantra, the app that helps you set a guiding phrase or goal. I chose to try this app.
Worry Knot, the app that teaches you how to manage your worries and helps you spend less time on them. I chose not to try this one, as I'm not prone to spending lots of time worrying.
I had trouble with the Hub app. It lost my questionnaire results after I loaded it up for the second time. After a couple days, it wouldn't load up at all. I wasn't thrilled, but the other apps work independently from it, so it's not the end of the world. Being able to track my mood climate week-to-week would've been nice, but since my trial period for this app suite was just over a week, it's not like it would have given me much data anyway.
I opted to create my own mantra in the My Mantra app: "I am a worthwhile person." I sometimes struggle with personal worth issues, so it seemed like the best place to start. The app gave numerous examples for your mantra, such as, "I am strong," "I am loved," "I will create," and "I am generous." The app then prompted you to think about your mantra and take pictures throughout the day of things that support that mantra.
The Daily Feats app came with four basic "feats" or healthy goals to begin with. These were: "I completed a task," "I did something physical today (even just walking)," "I smiled at another person," and "I ate something healthy." For my own personal edification, I added "I tended my plants today" and "I did 5 wall pushups and 10 situps today." I wasn't great about handling the lattermost, because I didn't assign a time of day to do them. Also doing situps hurts my tailbone for some reason.
No special setup or input was needed for Day To Day, beyond telling it my waking hours. This let the app calculate when to send me the next bit of knowledge about the skillset of the week. The first week was called Challenge Thinking, and revolved around noticing, understanding, and challenging negative thoughts. This was not super relevant to me personally, but Week 2 (Cultivate Gratitude) and Week 3 (Activate Pleasure) struck me as more useful. Unfortunately, there was no way to hop weeks.
To understand why that's a flaw, I should mention that these apps include reminders to use them. Daily Feats is supposed to remind you to jot down what feats you've accomplished so far that day, or a reminder from My Mantra to review your mantra, add pictures to it, or even set a new one. Day To Day, in particular, sends you multiple notifications throughout the day to help teach you self-management skills, feeding you a bit of info every few hours across your day.
However, these notifications did not trigger on my device if the apps were closed. Which means you need to keep each one open instead of closing them when you're done with them for the day. While I'm sure there are a lot of people that just navigate away from the apps without closing them when they're done, I don't think it's wise to expect your whole userbase to act that way. In addition, most Android apps that use reminders are programmed to run rudely in the background like I've described, so the fact that these don't do that is surprising.
I left the apps open for the last two days of my test, and surprisingly, that did not seem to fix the issue, so perhaps the problem is also linked to the Intellicare Hub app not working.
Also, some of the apps seemed incomplete or not fully thought out, like My Mantra. The idea was to set a mantra or two, which you would try to keep repeating to yourself of the course of the day. You could take pictures and store them under each mantra. But the app didn't really do anything except act as an image repository for categories (your mantras). If you don't regularly take photos of things, this app doesn't seem all that useful.
This may also somewhat be a function of the fact that I'm not a very visual person. So having to describe, "I am a worthwhile person" in pictures taken around my house, I struggled. Taking a picture of a clean, empty dishwasher (representing that I do my chores and that is worthwhile) doesn't convey that extra meaning to me when I immediately look at it. Taking a picture of an achievement in a video game seems shallow to me, even though I might be somewhat proud of it. And taking a picture of my plants, which still aren't dead for some reason, just reminds me of how much further they have to go before they'll produce anything. Seeing them in person is one thing, but a picture is quite another, at least to me.
I did spot typos in the course of the week, such as the one in Day To Day when setting your day schedule. Mistakes are italicized. It asks, "When dose your day typically start?" And an awkward phrasing in the Hub app during the assessment, which asked "... how often have you felt trouble falling asleep/staying asleep or sleeping too much?" Obviously neither of these example typographical and grammatical errors would cause much confusion, so these aren't really major issues. They simply caught my attention, as such things often do.
The apps also seemed to lose track of what day it was on occasion, which resulted in a disappointing broken streak in Daily Feats, as well as only being at Day 5 in Day To Day when I've been trying the app for 8 days. This phenomenon might be related to the issue I described above, with the apps not running in the background, but I honestly don't know.
The information in the apps, at least, seemed valuable. I don't do a whole lot with challenging my negative thoughts recently, though I did a good bit in the past. I mostly don't have tons of them any more, and it's become less of an issue, but the promptings of Day To Day and the Hub app (when it worked) seemed about right.
The Intellicare Hub app contains a set of informational resources about depression, anxiety, self-care, social support, thoughts and feelings, activities and emotions, and social media. I read through the sections on anxiety, depression, self-care, and social media. The information within was basic, but accurate, approachable for most reading levels, and positive.
The Hub app also contained a link to some quick resources, including the National Suicide Prevention Hotline, Crisis Text Line, and Suicide Prevention Lifeline Chat. I was glad to see these, and particularly the variety of available options. Some people like using the phone, but I personally despise it, so in an emergency when only phone call options were available, I'd probably just avoid that entirely. This offers text options, including a simple over-the-Internet chat rather than a text message service.
I've done a similar app review with Woebot, and also Wysa in a less thorough manner, but neither really helped me that much. Which isn't to say either app isn't helpful overall, it's more that they were geared towards different groups than me, specifically.
At any rate, I opted to try Intellicare because the suite of apps interested me, and because after a very careful examination, it seems Intellicare does not sell your personal data or even share it unless demanded by law. Their privacy policy wasn't in plainspeak, but neither was it particularly long or onerous to read. So that was something.
The Apps
I downloaded four of the six available apps. The hub app was mandatory, of course. The five additional apps are:Day To Day, the app that teaches coping skills and gives information on techniques and things to try during the day. I chose to try this one.
Daily Feats, the app that helps you celebrate your accomplishments and prods you to do some basic self-care. I chose to try this one as well.
Thought Challenger, the app that helps you challenge negative thoughts and control your mood. I don't currently suffer a lot of negative thoughts other than boomerang memories (and even those are rare), so I did not download this one.
My Mantra, the app that helps you set a guiding phrase or goal. I chose to try this app.
Worry Knot, the app that teaches you how to manage your worries and helps you spend less time on them. I chose not to try this one, as I'm not prone to spending lots of time worrying.
Starting Off
The first thing the Hub app did was present me with a questionnaire, to get a baseline for how I was feeling. The questions were easy to understand and the given answers were understandable and distinctive. I ranked as slightly anxious and moderately depressed, which is about right given my diagnoses. Each week, the Hub app is supposed to have you retake the questionnaire, which can then show you your progress.I had trouble with the Hub app. It lost my questionnaire results after I loaded it up for the second time. After a couple days, it wouldn't load up at all. I wasn't thrilled, but the other apps work independently from it, so it's not the end of the world. Being able to track my mood climate week-to-week would've been nice, but since my trial period for this app suite was just over a week, it's not like it would have given me much data anyway.
I opted to create my own mantra in the My Mantra app: "I am a worthwhile person." I sometimes struggle with personal worth issues, so it seemed like the best place to start. The app gave numerous examples for your mantra, such as, "I am strong," "I am loved," "I will create," and "I am generous." The app then prompted you to think about your mantra and take pictures throughout the day of things that support that mantra.
The Daily Feats app came with four basic "feats" or healthy goals to begin with. These were: "I completed a task," "I did something physical today (even just walking)," "I smiled at another person," and "I ate something healthy." For my own personal edification, I added "I tended my plants today" and "I did 5 wall pushups and 10 situps today." I wasn't great about handling the lattermost, because I didn't assign a time of day to do them. Also doing situps hurts my tailbone for some reason.
No special setup or input was needed for Day To Day, beyond telling it my waking hours. This let the app calculate when to send me the next bit of knowledge about the skillset of the week. The first week was called Challenge Thinking, and revolved around noticing, understanding, and challenging negative thoughts. This was not super relevant to me personally, but Week 2 (Cultivate Gratitude) and Week 3 (Activate Pleasure) struck me as more useful. Unfortunately, there was no way to hop weeks.
Observations/In Practice
One of the things I noticed early on about these apps, at least on Android, was that they didn't seem to know how to rudely run in the background even though you've closed them.To understand why that's a flaw, I should mention that these apps include reminders to use them. Daily Feats is supposed to remind you to jot down what feats you've accomplished so far that day, or a reminder from My Mantra to review your mantra, add pictures to it, or even set a new one. Day To Day, in particular, sends you multiple notifications throughout the day to help teach you self-management skills, feeding you a bit of info every few hours across your day.
However, these notifications did not trigger on my device if the apps were closed. Which means you need to keep each one open instead of closing them when you're done with them for the day. While I'm sure there are a lot of people that just navigate away from the apps without closing them when they're done, I don't think it's wise to expect your whole userbase to act that way. In addition, most Android apps that use reminders are programmed to run rudely in the background like I've described, so the fact that these don't do that is surprising.
I left the apps open for the last two days of my test, and surprisingly, that did not seem to fix the issue, so perhaps the problem is also linked to the Intellicare Hub app not working.
Also, some of the apps seemed incomplete or not fully thought out, like My Mantra. The idea was to set a mantra or two, which you would try to keep repeating to yourself of the course of the day. You could take pictures and store them under each mantra. But the app didn't really do anything except act as an image repository for categories (your mantras). If you don't regularly take photos of things, this app doesn't seem all that useful.
This may also somewhat be a function of the fact that I'm not a very visual person. So having to describe, "I am a worthwhile person" in pictures taken around my house, I struggled. Taking a picture of a clean, empty dishwasher (representing that I do my chores and that is worthwhile) doesn't convey that extra meaning to me when I immediately look at it. Taking a picture of an achievement in a video game seems shallow to me, even though I might be somewhat proud of it. And taking a picture of my plants, which still aren't dead for some reason, just reminds me of how much further they have to go before they'll produce anything. Seeing them in person is one thing, but a picture is quite another, at least to me.
I did spot typos in the course of the week, such as the one in Day To Day when setting your day schedule. Mistakes are italicized. It asks, "When dose your day typically start?" And an awkward phrasing in the Hub app during the assessment, which asked "... how often have you felt trouble falling asleep/staying asleep or sleeping too much?" Obviously neither of these example typographical and grammatical errors would cause much confusion, so these aren't really major issues. They simply caught my attention, as such things often do.
The apps also seemed to lose track of what day it was on occasion, which resulted in a disappointing broken streak in Daily Feats, as well as only being at Day 5 in Day To Day when I've been trying the app for 8 days. This phenomenon might be related to the issue I described above, with the apps not running in the background, but I honestly don't know.
The information in the apps, at least, seemed valuable. I don't do a whole lot with challenging my negative thoughts recently, though I did a good bit in the past. I mostly don't have tons of them any more, and it's become less of an issue, but the promptings of Day To Day and the Hub app (when it worked) seemed about right.
The Intellicare Hub app contains a set of informational resources about depression, anxiety, self-care, social support, thoughts and feelings, activities and emotions, and social media. I read through the sections on anxiety, depression, self-care, and social media. The information within was basic, but accurate, approachable for most reading levels, and positive.
The Hub app also contained a link to some quick resources, including the National Suicide Prevention Hotline, Crisis Text Line, and Suicide Prevention Lifeline Chat. I was glad to see these, and particularly the variety of available options. Some people like using the phone, but I personally despise it, so in an emergency when only phone call options were available, I'd probably just avoid that entirely. This offers text options, including a simple over-the-Internet chat rather than a text message service.
In Summary
At least for the apps I tried, this free suite of mental healthcare apps seems like a work in progress, albeit one with good potential. The information given by the apps seemed valuable, readable, and accurate.
However, there are definitely some major compatibility and functionality issues to work through, such as the Hub app simply refusing to open after a couple days and losing my test scores, the sub-apps losing which day it was, and the apps not running in the background (and thus the notifications not working). I tested the apps on an Android tablet, which may have contributed to the technical difficulties I experienced. Typically people use a phone, and Android itself covers a very broad base of devices. Thus, coding for it can be difficult. It's very likely the iOS versions of these apps, which have a much smaller range of applicable devices, are significantly more stable.
Beyond the major issues, there were minor issues like typos or "that's not quite right" grammatical issues, though not many. The apps themselves could use a bit of polish as well. I could have used some examples of how to make My Mantra's photo collection idea work for me, because, as mentioned above, I had serious issues with that, and in the end, basically didn't use that app at all after the first day.
I think I'll keep Day To Day and the Intellicare Hub app around for another week or so, and see what I think of using them in the long term. Maybe week 2's Cultivate Gratitude sections will be helpful to me.
Based on the performance I had from these apps using an Android tablet, they may or may not be worth your while. If you have a therapist and support network already, you may not need any of the information within. If you don't, this might be the perfect way to start learning this information. Particularly now, with the coronavirus isolating us all, this could be a very useful set of tools and reminders for people who are suffering mental illness for the first time, or for the first time in a while.
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