How it works
- Download the app, read about the study, and decide whether you’d like to take part.
- Tell us which hours of the day you’re usually awake.
- Once a day, at a random moment during those hours, we’ll beep you to answer a few quick questions: how you’re feeling, what you’re doing, who you’re with, and where you are. Surveys take only a minute or two.
- We combine your anonymous answers with data on things like weather, green spaces and air quality, to understand how people’s surroundings, activities and circumstances affect how they feel.
What you’ll do
- Answer a brief survey once a day (or once a week: you can switch any time)
- Share your approximate location, if you agree, so we can link responses to the environment around you
- Take a photo of where you are, and choose for each one whether it can be used in research, and whether it can be made public
- Now and then, try something a bit different (always optional), such as measuring your heart rate variability with a fingertip over your phone’s camera
What you get
- Charts of your own responses, such as when you’re happiest, which you unlock as you answer more surveys
- A summary of your personality
- Findings from our research as the study goes on
- The warm glow of helping increase the sum of human knowledge
Your privacy
- Taking part is anonymous: we never ask for your name, email address or phone number
- When you’re at home or at work, we store only approximate location
- All data is encrypted in transit and at rest, and is hosted in the EU by EU companies
- Photos are encrypted so that only the research team can see them, except when you choose to make one public
- You can withdraw at any time, without giving a reason, and ask us to delete your data from within the app
The full participant information sheet, which explains exactly what data we collect and how we look after it, is shown in the app before you decide whether to take part, and is always available afterwards under Information and help.
About the research
Mappiness is led by Dr George MacKerron at the University of Sussex Business School, with Dr Henrik Lindhjem of Menon Economics, Oslo. It succeeds the original Mappiness app, which collected millions of responses and showed, among other things, that people are happier in natural environments. Some funding has been provided by the Research Council of Norway.
This research has been approved by the Sciences & Technology Cross-Schools Research Ethics Committee (C-REC) at the University of Sussex. The study’s ethical review application number is ER/GM268/2.
We’ll publish results in academic journals and elsewhere. For any research outputs that aren’t publicly available, please email us to see if we can provide a copy.
Help and support
I’m not receiving any beeps
Check that notifications are allowed for Mappiness in your phone’s Settings, and that Focus or Do Not Disturb isn’t silencing them. Then open Daily beeps on the app’s main screen, and check the hours you’ve told us you’re available.
Can I be beeped less often?
Yes. Open Daily beeps on the app’s main screen to switch to weekly beeps. You can switch back at any time.
How do I see my own data?
Tap My data on the app’s main screen. More charts and feedback unlock as you answer more surveys.
How do I stop taking part, or delete my data?
Go to Information and help in the app. You can withdraw at any time, without giving a reason, and choose whether or not data you’ve already contributed may be used in future research.
If you ask us to delete your data, we’ll delete it from our systems straight away, and from our encrypted backups as those backups expire, within 12 months. It won’t be possible to withdraw data from research that has already been conducted.
Please withdraw in the app before deleting it. Because taking part is anonymous, once the app is deleted we can no longer tell which data is yours, so we can’t delete it.
I was invited by a survey panel
Enter the code your panel gave you when you sign up, so that your responses can be credited. Panel points end after about 30 responses, and the app will tell you when you reach that point. You’re welcome to carry on after that if you’d like to.
For questions about points, please contact your panel. GallupPanelet members can email support@galluppanelet.no.
Some of the questions upset me
Some questions are about mood, wellbeing and health, and it’s possible you could find them distressing. You can find sources of help and support under Information and help in the app. Answering any question is always optional, and you can stop taking part at any time.
Is the heart rate measurement accurate?
Heart rate measurements are estimates for research purposes only. Mappiness is not a medical device and isn’t intended to diagnose, treat or monitor any condition.
Contact us
For help with the app, or anything else about the study, email hello@mappiness.app or one of the contacts below.
Lead researcher: Dr George MacKerron <george.mackerron@sussex.ac.uk>
Associate Professor in Economics, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9SL, UK
Ethics committee chair: Dr Pablo Romero-Sanchiz <frecsemset@sussex.ac.uk>
If you have concerns about the way the study has been conducted, please contact the chair of the Sciences
& Technology Cross-Schools Research Ethics Committee, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9RH, UK.