Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca, 4 BC - 65 AD). 2014. The Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca. Harry M. Hine, translator. University of Chicago Press, p. 130.
You hold in your hand -- or maybe near your hand (depending on what device you're using to read this) -- a powerful computer. Today's smartphones are mind-bogglingly powerful. It's become a cliche to say that your phone has more computing power than all of the computers that sent human beings to the moon (one estimate: 120,000,000 times more powerful).* Most of us don't really use very much of that computing power. And that's kind of a shame. Because smartphones can be used for considerably more than their usual occupations (top uses: social media, watching movies, games, maps, mail and music).** Smartphones can be used for genuine scientific research.
A lot of that research is in the social sciences and psychology -- for example, sites like SurveySignal (http://www.surveysignal.com/) can be used for surveys on things like "happiness," and CarbonSix (http://c6research.com/field-notes/25-field-notes-ots) has an app designed for ethnographic research. Polldaddy (https://polldaddy.com/) can be used to create and distribute simple surveys. And of course there are many apps for business and market research (for a discussion of four relevant apps see https://www.marketstrategies.com/blog/2015/06/the-smartphone-revolution-four-capabilities-you-need-in-your-market-research/).
Smartphones are also being increasingly used for medical research. For example, in 2015 Apple released five apps to study asthma, breast cancer, heart disease, and Parkinson's disease. These apps can be used to study both subjective and objective characteristics (both "how are you feeling" questions and tests of manual or mental dexterity, for example). And health, fitness and diet are huge areas for research.
But what I've found intriguing recently is the idea of using smartphone apps in physical science research:
- Earthquakes
- The newly released MyShake (http://myshake.berkeley.edu/) lets your phone become an earthquake detector.
- Weather and Agriculture
- mPing (http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/projects/ping/) records and transmits precipitation data.
- CliMate (https://grdc.com.au/Research-and-Development/GRDC-Update-Papers/2013/03/CliMate-a-smart-phone-App-for-farmers), Fieldview (https://www.climate.com/) and LandPKS (http://landpotential.org/) have apps for farming and agricultural research.
- Environment and Pollution
- Secchi (http://www.secchidisk.org/) is an app for recording water clarity (and phytoplankton abundance).
- What's Invasive (http://whatsinvasive.com/), IveGot1 (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ivegot1-identify-report-invasive/id381326170), the Mid-Atlantic Early Detection Network (http://www.eddmaps.org/midatlantic/), EDDMapS West (http://www.eddmaps.org/mrwc/) and Outsmart Invasive Species (http://masswoods.net/outsmart) all let people report on invasive species.
- Loss of the Night (http://cosalux.de/#/en/portfolio-en/loss-of-the-night-android-app/) lets you report on light pollution.
- Marine Debris Tracker (http://www.marinedebris.engr.uga.edu/) lets mariners and beachcombers report on debris at sea or shore (there are multiple categories or debris, like bottles, clothing, etc.) Creek Watch (http://www.scientificamerican.com/citizen-science/project.cfm?id=creek-watch) is a similar app for rivers and lakes.
- NoiseTube (http://www.noisetube.net/#&panel1-1) can be used to monitor and collect data on noise pollution.
- Visibility (http://robotics.usc.edu/~mobilesensing/Projects/AirVisibilityMonitoring) can be used to monitor particulate air pollution. A similar app (that requires a separate device) is iSPEX (http://ispex-eu.org/about-ispex/ispex-app/).
* http://www.zmescience.com/research/technology/smartphone-power-compared-to-apollo-432/
** https://bgr.com/2016/02/04/most-popular-smartphone-apps-facebook-google/
*** Mark Joseph Stern, "Weight, Watched." Slate. November 11, 2013: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/11/smartphone_diet_apps_are_they_helping_us_lose_weight.html
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/8-apps-that-turn-citizens-into-scientists/
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/health/2015/07/28/smartphones-become-new-tool-for-medical-research-with-new-apps/
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/new-app-puts-earthquake-detector-your-pocket?mode=topic&context=60&tgt=nr
http://qrj.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/07/31/1468794115593335.abstract
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