网上购物能预测心理疾病？

网上购物能预测心理疾病？

一言不合就剁手，心情不好就想刷刷刷！网上买买买的大数据记录，更能够真实反映你的心理状态？

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

fintech金融科技；互联网金融

buzz嗡嗡声[bʌz]

bleep发出哔哔声[bliːp]

manic episodes躁狂发作

deteriorate恶化，变坏[dɪ'tɪərɪəreɪt]

biographical传记的，传记体的[baɪə'græfɪk(ə)l]

forge伪造；做锻工；前进[fɔːdʒ]

engagement婚约；约会；交战；诺言[ɪn'geɪdʒm(ə)nt; en-]

Could online shopping habits be used to predict mental illness?（ 751 words）

By Naomi Rovnick

Could our online banking transactions be used to predict a breakdown in our psychological health? An influential new charity believes the fintech industry,with support from the UK government,could use big data to break the link between mental illness and financial crisis.

Just as fitness trackers follow our steps and can be programmed to buzz,blink or bleep when we become inactive,the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute thinks apps could be built that closely monitor how people spend,sending warning signals when patterns emerge that suggest compulsive or destructive behaviour.

A quarter of the UK population will experience a mental health problem during the course of their lives,and clear links are emerging between psychological and financial wellbeing.

More than nine in ten people with mental health issues say they overspend and struggle to make sensible financial decisions when unwell,according to a survey of 5,500 people by the charity,which was launched earlier this year with a £2m donation from Money Saving Expert founder Martin Lewis.

Almost three-quarters said they let unpaid bills pile up,while more than half said they had taken out loans they otherwise would not have applied for.

The charity has uncovered a variety of unhealthy spending patterns reported by people who are psychologically unwell. These include overspending during manic episodes,and buying unaffordable items for oneself or others in an attempt to boost one’s perceived social status or self-worth.

Respondents to the survey said poor mental health leads to poor budgeting and decision making,while the ensuing financial distress made their psychological situation worse.

“When I am feeling unwell,it’s like I lose all sense of reality. I’m living and breathing someone else’s air,spending someone else’s money,”said one respondent.“Paying bills and maintaining financial stability is crucial in preventing my mental health deteriorating,”said another.

The charity’s“big data”solution is for fintech companies to develop tools capable of analysing large volumes of banking transactions. This could result in apps that monitor spending and are able to spot patterns that could be used to“signpost those at risk towards advice and support,hopefully preventing financial crisis”.

Ahead of the Autumn Statement,the charity is calling on chancellor Philip Hammond to fund research that closely analyses the banking data of 50,000 volunteers,who would provide 2-3 years of transactions data alongside biographical and demographic information. This would be anonymised and collated to allow researchers to analyse the financial situations of different groups,just as the 100,000 Genome project has embarked on building a massive DNA database that can be used to forge links between genetic mutations and diseases.

“There is no data to get your hands on if you want to understand consumer pathways into debt,”said Polly MacKenzie,the director of the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute.

“If there were,then just as banks can identity potential fraud on our accounts from spending many millions of pounds teaching computers to spot such things,why can’t those machines also be taught to spot periods of manic spending?”

To monitor spending,a Fitbit-style money and mental health app would rely on consumers granting access to their online banking data,said Conrad Ford,the chief executive of fintech group Funding Options.

He added that personal engagement with such an app would be crucial,and that people would not view behavioural nudges as an invasion of privacy if they had already signed up for the service.

British banks do not currently allow their customers to open up such data to third parties,but the government has compelled them to do so by 2018,as part of the Open Banking project to spur more competition in the current account market.

However,Mr Ford added that consumers — particularly millennials — were already displaying an appetite for personalised banking apps that helped manage financial behaviour. He cited Monzo,a start-up bank whose app tells account holders things such as how much they may have spent on takeaway coffee in the past month,as exemplifying the trend.

“These ideas do not only have to be for people whose health is at risk or whose finances are in trouble,”he said.“There is definitely a genuine‘wow’factor for consumers when they see an app that monitors and itemises their spending,whether that is telling you how much you really spend in Pret A Manger,or something more fundamental. There is no doubt the demand is out there for this kind of‘financial Fitbit’idea.”