Smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment reveals an incremental association between natural diversity and mental wellbeing.

Using smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment, this study investigated an association between natural diversity on mental wellbeing. A sample of 1,998 participants completed 41,448 assessments between April 2018 and September 2023. Environments which included a larger range of natural features, such as trees, plants and birdlife (high natural diversity) were associated with greater mental wellbeing than environments including a smaller range of natural features (low natural diversity).

Smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment reveals mental health benefits of birdlife.

The mental health benefits of everyday encounters with birdlife for mental health are poorly understood. Previous studies have typically relied on retrospective questionnaires or artificial set-ups with little ecological validity. In the present study, we used the Urban Mind smartphone application to examine the impact of seeing or hearing birds on self-reported mental wellbeing in real-life contexts.

Lonely in a crowd: investigating the association between overcrowding and loneliness using smartphone technologies.

Loneliness is a major public health concern with links to social and environmental factors. Previous studies have typically investigated loneliness as a stable emotional state using retrospective cross-sectional designs. Yet people experience different levels of loneliness throughout the day depending on their surrounding environment.

Urban Mind: Using Smartphone Technologies to Investigate the Impact of Nature on Mental Well-Being in Real Time.

Existing evidence on the beneficial effects of nature on mental health comes from studies using cross-sectional designs. We developed a smartphone-based tool (Urban Mind; ) to examine how exposure to natural features within the built environment affects mental well-being in real time. The tool was used to monitor 108 individuals who completed 3013 assessments over a 1-week period.