The goal of this clinical trial is to test whether photography-based, smartphone exercises can increase well-being and reduce depressive symptoms in college and graduate students. The main questions it aims to answer are:
Can savoring and/or social sharing of positive experiences via smartphone photography improve emotional well-being? Does attentional retraining toward positive stimuli reduce depressive symptoms?
Researchers compared:
Picture This! (21 days of taking daily photos of things that elicited a positive emotion, savoring the moment, and reviewing the photos at the end of each day) Picture This! Plus Social Sharing (21 days taking daily photos of things that elicited a positive emotion, savoring the moment, and reviewing the photos at the end of each day + sharing photos each week with a friend/family member) Document This! (21 days of taking "day in the life" photos each day and reviewing them each evening) Passive control group (21 days without instructions to take photos)
To see if the positive emotion-focused intervention conditions (Picture This! and Picture This! Plus Social Sharing) outperformed neutral (Document This!0 or no-photo conditions in improving psychological health.
Participants were:
Randomly assigned to one of four groups. Asked to complete baseline and follow-up questionnaires and computer tasks.
Three active conditions:
Take 2+ photos daily for 3 weeks. Upload photos to a secure drive. Complete nightly savoring exercises and surveys. (Social Sharing group only) Share photos weekly with a friend/family member.
All participants completed weekly surveys and a final lab visit with follow-up assessments.