JMIR formative researchAug 14, 2020

Links Between Environmental Sounds Recorded on Smartphones and Anxiety and Depression Symptoms

Circadian Biology Weekly Brief ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗

Updated Apr 3, 2026

Abstract

Regularity in daily patterns of activity inferred from environmental audio volume was correlated with depression severity (r=-0.37; P<.001).

A measure of sleep disturbance from environmental audio volume was correlated with the severity of depression (r=0.23; P=.03).
Detection of speaking voices in environmental audio was correlated with depression severity (r=-0.37; P<.001) and functional impairment (r=-0.29; P=.01).
No significant correlations were found between environmental audio features and measures of generalized anxiety or social anxiety.
The findings suggest that environmental audio can provide insights into mental health status, particularly regarding depression.

Simplified

BACKGROUND: Objective and continuous severity measures of anxiety and depression are highly valuable and would have many applications in psychiatry and psychology. A collective source of data for objective measures are the sensors in a person's smartphone, and a particularly rich source is the microphone that can be used to sample the audio environment. This may give broad insight into activity, sleep, and social interaction, which may be associated with quality of life and severity of anxiety and depression.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to explore the properties of passively recorded environmental audio from a subject's smartphone to find potential correlates of symptom severity of social anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, depression, and general impairment.

METHODS: An Android app was designed, together with a centralized server system, to collect periodic measurements of the volume of sounds in the environment and to detect the presence or absence of English-speaking voices. Subjects were recruited into a 2-week observational study during which the app was run on their personal smartphone to collect audio data. Subjects also completed self-report severity measures of social anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, depression, and functional impairment. Participants were 112 Canadian adults from a nonclinical population. High-level features were extracted from the environmental audio of 84 participants with sufficient data, and correlations were measured between the 4 audio features and the 4 self-report measures.

RESULTS: The regularity in daily patterns of activity and inactivity inferred from the environmental audio volume was correlated with the severity of depression (r=-0.37; P<.001). A measure of sleep disturbance inferred from the environmental audio volume was also correlated with the severity of depression (r=0.23; P=.03). A proxy measure of social interaction based on the detection of speaking voices in the environmental audio was correlated with depression (r=-0.37; P<.001) and functional impairment (r=-0.29; P=.01). None of the 4 environmental audio-based features tested showed significant correlations with the measures of generalized anxiety or social anxiety.

CONCLUSIONS: In this study group, the environmental audio was shown to contain signals that were associated with the severity of depression and functional impairment. Associations with the severity of social anxiety disorder and generalized anxiety disorder were much weaker in comparison and not statistically significant at the 5% significance level. This work also confirmed previous work showing that the presence of voices is associated with depression. Furthermore, this study suggests that sparsely sampled audio volume could provide potentially relevant insight into subjects' mental health.

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Competing interests

Conflicts of Interest: MAK has been a consultant or advisory board member for GlaxoSmithKline, Lundbeck, Eli Lilly, Boehringer Ingelheim, Organon, AstraZeneca, Janssen, Janssen-Ortho, Solvay, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Shire, Sunovion, Pfizer, Purdue, Merck, Astellas, Tilray, Bedrocan, Takeda, Eisai, and Otsuka. MAK conducted research for GlaxoSmithKline, Lundbeck, Eli Lilly, Organon, AstraZeneca, Jannsen-Ortho, Solvay, Genuine Health, Shire, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Takeda, Pfizer, Hoffman La Rosche, Biotics, Purdue, Astellas, Forest, and Lundbeck. MK has received honoraria from GlaxoSmithKline, Lundbeck, Eli Lilly, Boehringer Ingelheim, Organon, AstraZeneca, Janssen, Janssen-Ortho, Solvay, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Shire, Sunovion, Pfizer, Purdue, Merck, Astellas, Bedrocan, Tilray, Allergan, and Otsuka. MAK has received research grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Sick Kids Foundation, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Foundation, Canadian Psychiatric Research Foundation, Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and the Lotte and John Hecht Memorial Foundation.

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Links Between Environmental Sounds Recorded on Smartphones and Anxiety and Depression Symptoms

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