History
A small research team at the University of Bonn, Ionut (Johnny) Andone, Konrad Blaszkiewicz and assistant professor Alexander Markowetz were to study big data. Yet, there was no data available; only Google, Facebook, and Yahoo had access to such data. The team would have to collect its own data set. At the same time, smartphones changed the world and caused much concern. Combining these observations, the researchers designed the Menthal project. Joining forces with psychologist Christian Montag, they initiated the first large scale study of smartphone addiction.
The Menthal app tracks phone usage, computes in-depth analysis, and provides feedback to the user: “Your personal information scale for Android”. With approval of the institutional review board, the collected data remains on the Menthal servers, for academic analysis. Since its launch in 2014, Menthal has received massive press attention and attracted >700.000 participants. It now constitutes the largest data set of human behavior available to academic research collected through academic efforts. This dataset is for academic purpose only, and remains at the University of Bonn.
Over time, numerous researchers and corporations worldwide have asked to use Menthal technology for their own projects. For this reason, the Menthal team has founded Murmuras in 2019. The focus of Murmuras lies especially on individual researchers without dedicated IT-budgets. Ideally, any MSc student should be able to run even extensive experiments directly on our platform. Larger research initiatives or corporate clients naturally enjoy any level of collaboration and customization.
Uni Bonn press release || Uni Bonn Pressemitteilung
Menthal press articles
Smartphone-Sucht: Gönnt euch doch mal ‘ne Pause! || Bonner Uni-Studie : 53 Mal täglich das Handy in der Hand || “Zu viel Smartphone macht unglücklich” || Zeitfresser, Zeitsparer oder Zeitvertreiber? – Vom Umgang mit … || Smartphone-App “Menthal” schlägt Alarm || Handynutzung soll exakt erforscht werden Hat mich mein … || Apple und Google bringen Kontrolle ins Leben mit Smartphone || Menthal : l’application qui scrute vos applications… || App überwacht täglichen Smartphone-Konsum || Menthal Android app reveals your smartphone usage patterns || Menthal-App misst Smartphone-Nutzung || Un’app per scoprire se siete dipendenti dallo smartphone || Kostenlose App misst persönlichen Umgang mit dem … || Menthal App Will Show How Addicted We Are To Our … || App “Menthal” deckt Handy-Sucht auf ||
Books
– Markowetz, A. (2015) Digitaler Burnout. Droemer HC.
– Montag, C. (2017). Homo Digitalis: Smartphones, soziale Netzwerke und das Gehirn. Springer-Verlag.
Publications
– Montag, C., Markowetz, A., Błaszkiewicz, K., Andone, I., Lachmann, B., Sariyska, R., Trendafilov, B., Eibes, M., Kolb, J., Reuter, M., Markett, S., Weber, B. (2017). Facebook usage on smartphones and gray matter volume of the nucleus accumbens. Behavioural brain research, 329, 221-228.
– Montag, C., Reuter, M., & Markowetz, A. (2017). The impact of psychoinformatics on Internet addiction including new evidence. Internet Addiction (pp. 221-229). Springer, Cham.
– Andone, I., Błaszkiewicz, K., Böhmer, M., & Markowetz, A. (2017, September). Impact of location-based games on phone usage and movement: a case study on Pokémon GO In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (p. 102). ACM.
– Lachmann, B., Sariyska, R., Kannen, C., Błaszkiewicz, K., Trendafilov, B., Andone, I., Eibes, M., Markowetz, A., Li, M., Kendrick, K. M. & Montag, C. (2017). Contributing to Overall Life Satisfaction: Personality Traits Versus Life Satisfaction Variables Revisited—Is Replication Impossible?. Behavioral Sciences, 8(1), 1.
– Lachmann, B.; Sariyska, R., Markowetz, A., Kannen, C., Błaszkiewicz, K., Trendafilov, B.; Andone, I.; Eibes, M.; Montag, C..(2016) Molecular genetics of life satisfaction and links to personality. Personality and Individual Differences, 101, 493. Pergamon
– Montag, C.; Błaszkiewicz, K., Sariyska, R; Lachmann, B; Andone, I; Trendafilov, B; Eibes, M; Markowetz, A..(2016) Who’s active on Whatsapp? Evidence from Psychoinformatics. Personality and Individual Differences, 101, 499. Pergamon
– Andone, I., Błaszkiewicz, K., Eibes, M., Trendafilov, B., Montag, C., & Markowetz, A. (2016, September). How age and gender affect smartphone usage. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing: Adjunct (pp. 9-12). ACM.
– Andone, I., Błaszkiewicz, K., Eibes, M., Trendafilov, B., Montag, C., & Markowetz, A. (2016, September). Menthal: a framework for mobile data collection and analysis. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing: Adjunct (pp. 624-629). ACM.
– Andone, I., Błaszkiewicz, K., Eibes, M., Trendafilov, B., Montag, C., & Markowetz, A. (2016, September). Menthal: quantifying smartphone usage. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing: Adjunct (pp. 559-564). ACM.
– Welke, P., Andone, I., Błaszkiewicz, K., & Markowetz, A. (2016, September). Differentiating smartphone users by app usage. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (pp. 519-523). ACM.
– Andone, I., Błaszkiewicz, K., Trendafilov, B., Eibes, M., Montag, C., & Markowetz, A.(2016) Menthal-Running a Science Project as a Start-Up. In Computing in Mental Health, Workshop at CHI 2016. ACM.
– Montag, C., Błaszkiewicz, K., Lachmann, B., Sariyska, R., Andone, I., Trendafilov, B., & Markowetz, A. (2015). Recorded Behavior as a Valuable Resource for Diagnostics in Mobile Phone Addiction: Evidence from Psychoinformatics. Behavioral Sciences, 5(4), 434-442.
– Montag, C.; Reuter, M., & Markowetz, A. (2015). The Impact of Psychoinformatics on Internet Addiction. In Internet Addiction (pp. 143-150). Springer International Publishing.
– Montag, C.; Kannen, C., Lachmann, B., Sariyska, R., Duke, É., Reuter, M., & Markowetz, A. (2015). The importance of analogue zeitgebers to reduce digital addictive tendencies in the 21st century. Addictive Behaviors Reports, 2, 23-27.
– Montag, C.; Błaszkiewicz, K., Sariyska, R., Lachmann, B., Andone, I., Trendafilov, B., Eibes, M. & Markowetz, A. (2015). Smartphone usage in the 21st century: who is active on WhatsApp?. BMC research notes, 8(1), 331.
– Montag, C.; Błaszkiewicz, K., Lachmann, B., Andone, I., Sariyska, R., Trendafilov, B., Reuter, M. & Markowetz, A. (2014). Correlating personality and actual phone usage: Evidence from psychoinformatics. Journal of Individual Differences, 35(3), 158.
– Markowetz, A.; Błaszkiewicz, K., Montag, C., Switala, C. & Schläpfer, T. (2014). Psycho-Informatics: Big data shaping modern psychometrics. Medical Hypotheses, 82, 405-411.
