Scientists find that smartphone can determine a person’s character

Modern smartphones collect a ton of information about their owners. Thereby predicting personality from patterns of behavior collected with smartphones, a scientific study proves this.

It has long been known that various companies receive information (which they claim is impersonal) to improve their products’ algorithms. However, you can learn a lot about a person’s personality from how a person uses a smartphone. At the same time, you do not need to look at the installed applications and even unlock your smartphone. All that is required is the data received from the device’s accelerometer.

Without going into technical details, the accelerometer is a device for measuring the acceleration of an object. As a rule, an accelerometer is a kind of sensor fixed on an elastic suspension on one side and a vibration damping device (damper).

The deviation of the sensor from its initial position carries information about the acceleration force. Concerning smartphones, this property of the accelerometer is used for, for example, automatically rotating the screen, detecting tap or shaking gestures, counting the number of steps, and so on. At the same time, the accelerometer often works even when the smartphone is locked.

The simplest accelerometer. It is probably a little more complicated in your smartphone, but the basic principle of operation remains the same.

How to determine a person’s character using a smartphone

Not so long ago, scientists from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology stated that many critical parameters of a person’s personality and character could be calculated based on smartphone accelerometers. As the journalists of the Engadget edition note, the experts took into account the fact that the accelerometer of the gadget allows you to find out what distances a person travels per day and at what speed he does it. It also investigated how often a person checks notifications and receives calls.

The authors of the work found that the indicators they used have a direct relationship with the manifestation of a person’s character traits. But how? Everything is straightforward: according to scientists, friendly people who took part in the experiment most often have an impulsive nature of behavior and spend their free time outside the home, but often in different places. Sensitive women check their notifications regularly. Surprisingly, men with the same character trait, on the contrary, do it very rarely.

Why is this needed?

Unfortunately, there is nothing new here. According to scientists, a new layer of data obtained from accelerometers can be used to match the recommended pairs on dating sites better, to improve the algorithms of social networks, and to make the work of everyone’s so hotly “beloved” targeted advertising more efficient.

However, it would help if you didn’t wait for new algorithms to appear soon. The new study was only preliminary and affected only 52 people. Now experts from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology intend to repeat the experience on a larger sample of people.