1 . Tracking daily steps can motivate us to walk more. Tracking sleep can reveal sleep patterns and help improve them. Can tracking our moods make us happier?
There are now many tech ways to log your emotions each day. Fitbit offers mood logging in its stress-management tool. Apps like Daylio focus on mood. The latest big player to enter the competition is Apple. Its latest software updates include a way to log your state of mind.
Why log your mood? Many mental-health professionals say simply being aware of your mental state can identify patterns and improve well-being. When people can see associations between their moods and factors like sleep and exercise, these doctors say, it can be even more powerful. Apple’s push into mental health comes as the country is experiencing a youth mental-health crisis and growing numbers of adults are struggling with depression.
Then you can figure out if you feel better on days when you sleep well or exercise more. After selecting how they feel, people can then choose factors that have the biggest impact on their feelings, like travel or family. The features will be available in the Health app on iPhones and iPads. On the Apple Watch, it’s in the Mindfulness app. Apple device users who track their moods will be able to share the log with their doctors. (Apple says it doesn’t share Health app data with third parties without the user’s permission.)
“When people keep track of emotional changes and see linkages, it can lead them to make changes in their behavior,” says Michelle Craske, a psychology and psychiatry professor at UCLA who has studied the effects of mood tracking.
But some research suggests that people don’t experience lasting benefits because they don’t track often or long enough. “A lot of mood-tracking tools are built on the idea that people would track their mood at least once a day because they’re supposed to identify patterns and triggers (诱因),” said Stephen Schueller, associate professor of psychological science at the University of California, who has studied mood-tracking apps. Schueller and his colleagues found that most people really only track their moods a couple of times a week. However, Schueller said that while there isn’t enough evidence to say definitively that tracking your moods makes you happier, there aren’t any downsides — except the few extra minutes a day on your phone.
1. What motivates Apple to update the mood-tracking software?| A．The growing need for emotion regulation. |
| B．The fierce tech competition. |
| C．The global mental-health crisis. |
| D．The professionals’ advice. |
| A．Adjusting one’s behavior accordingly. | B．Sharing the record with a doctor. |
| C．Monitoring one’s exercise habits. | D．Cutting down the screen time. |
| A．Because users don’t record long and often. | B．Because the data can’t be shared. |
| C．Because extra screen time is harmful. | D．Because the triggers are diverse. |
| A．Tips on Keeping a Good Mood | B．Keeping Track of Good Emotions |
| C．Apple’s Efforts to Make You Happy | D．Tracking Moods, Beneficial or Not |
