The Mood Meter

Mood Meter, despite the fact that I have only had it for 4 days, has been so helpful. It has helped me recognize my emotions and help cope when I’m depressed. I love the fact that it gives you solutions and quotes to how you are feeling, and gives you the option to shift emotions. Under the “blue” category, which means someone is feeling anywhere from down to despair. I wish they would add a “suicidal” option, that when clicked gives you a warning message and links one of the many suicide hotlines that you can call or text. I feel like this would separate the app from an emotional aid, to an app that saves lives. All in all this app is near perfect and I recommend to everyone❤️

The mood meter is used by schools in my area so I thought I’d check this app out. It raises some privacy concerns for me. Even if you opt out of providing any personal info, you are still required to provide your [a] birthdate to use this paid app. You may want to read the privacy policy before paying for it! I know I am not comfortable with a paid-for app tracking family members’ emotional states and then using it for research purposes without more information on the specific research questions being addressed and ability to opt out. Not sure how this passes IRB requirements... Uses of ‘aggregated’ data include “We may use and disclose aggregated and/or non-personal information about users of the Service for research and measurement purposes. No such use of disclosure will identify or be able to identify any individual user. For example, we might want to know how many people in Texas are feeling in the “Blue” at a particular time. If you are from Texas, your data may be included in this analysis, but we will not include any of your personal information. “

It was discovered by myself that after two decades I had learned that counseling is a tool that allows one to privately share and sort out personal and family problems and issues. I have found this mood meter can be utilized as an additional resource to assist in diagnostic review for psychological and personal evaluation. The mood meter is a brilliant way to allow the recording of one’s own mood and is motivating, interesting and enjoyable at the same time. Being that there is also a solution offered at the end is a bonus and a surprise. The solution offered in the end as a way to change your mood, if so desired, serves as a means to entice the person back to track their own mood another day, to know themselves more and possibly receive private options for help.

I loved mood meter. I used it every day and it has been a big help. Then the app updated automatically to the new version and several things enraged me: - All of my months of entries were completely deleted! I have been logging so I can see patterns in my thinking and they are just gone! - The new version doesn’t even let you write down why you are feeling how you are feeling. How are you supposed to find patterns in your life now? For example, if you are typically upset around a particular friend, or because you stay up to late. This was the biggest benefit of the app. Now it just lets your mark if you are home, work, other. What’s the point of that? I just can’t believe all my entries have just been wiped. I loved this app and now I have no use for it. Can I switch back to the old version and get my entries again?

All my data is gone from prior years, I can see more in version history this would happen but who’s phone isn’t on auto-update? Also lost the ability to add a note along with the mood. There’s a multiple choice for work, home other.. why can’t there also be a short text field to enter exactly what is going on?? And a true upgrade would be showing the user to add their own tags. The design isn’t even that much better, it’s not that intuitive, I’m clicking around expecting more. It’s a lump of design updates at the expense of enhancing the product. I prefer the simplicity of the original. I liked the 4 quadrant view and the tutorial was helpful and I was able to share the concept with many people with that tutorial alone.