You can sign up for the study here

Researchers at Stony Brook University and the University of Pennsylvania seek to better understand the well-being, use of alcohol and other substances, and language use.

Approximately 2 months. The study has two waves. The first wave involves a 45-minute baseline assessment, followed by two weeks of mini-surveys three times per day. Two months after the baseline assessment, participants will be contacted for a follow-up assessment, in addition to another two weeks of mini-surveys three times per day.
If you are a participant from the Stony Brook Hospital: the maximum amount of time that you will actively participate in this study is 4 weeks. After the baseline, you will be sent mini-surveys 3x a day for two consecutive weeks. After you complete your active participation for up to two weeks, we will continue to access your health information for the next ten years for clinical events over the long term.

If you decide to drop out of the study, email mylifecourse@cs.stonybrook.edu with your request.

No, your information will not be sold or distributed to anyone.

Yes, this study is designed to ensure that all participant responses and data are kept confidential and secure. Only your data is collected (not your friends) and all data are encrypted and stored on secure write-only servers. In fact, even if our webserver were hacked attackers would not be able to access your data. Data is only accessible to members of our trained research team, and the researchers are not individually reading all of your messages but rather sending them through an automatic text analysis that pulls our scores for particular language patterns (e.g. such as amount of positive words). We have been running such studies for upwards of a decade. You can see a list of our past scientific publications here: http://wwbp.org/publications.html

Please send an email to mylifecourse@cs.stonybrook.edu and describe your problem.

There are no foreseeable risks or harms for participating in this study. Answering a daily survey prompt (2 minutes/day) and installing the language acquisition apps may serve as a minor inconvenience.

For further questions or any problems you may encounter, please send an email to mylifecourse@cs.stonybrook.edu.

Contact mylifecourse@cs.stonybrook.edu with your request.

Along with financial compensation, you will be participating in research to gain scientific knowledge to help us better identify people at risk for developing alcohol and other substance-related issues.

Payment options include Paypal and Venmo. You will be asked your preference during the initial survey.

Payments will be made on Tuesdays and Fridays.

iPhone users will receive $20 through Venmo or Paypal for completing baseline survey ($10) and providing access to social media to perform a 1-time lookback ($10). Android users will receive $25 through Venmo or Paypal for completing baseline survey ($10) and allowing access to text (optional: social media) to perform a 1-time lookback ($15). Both iPhone and Android will then earn up to $63 for completing daily mini-text message surveys delivered on your smartphone over a 2-week period: $1.50 for each complete text survey (three times daily).

Please contact mylifecourse@cs.stonybrook.edu and describe your problem.

Contact mylifecourse@cs.stonybrook.edu with your request.

Yes, you will be compensated for all surveys and data sharing up until the point of dropping out.

No, your information will not be sold or distributed to anyone.

Yes, this study is designed to ensure that all participant responses and data are kept confidential and secure. Only your data is collected (your friends’ data will not be collected) and all data is encrypted and stored on secure write-only servers. In fact, even if our web server were hacked, attackers would not be able to access your data. Data is only accessible to members of our trained research team, and the researchers are not individually reading all of your messages but rather sending them through an automatic text analysis that pulls our scores for particular language patterns (e.g. such as amount of positive words). We have been running such studies for upwards of a decade. You can see a list of our past scientific publications here: http://wwbp.org/publications.html

There are no foreseeable risks or harms for participating in this study. Answering a daily survey prompt (2 minutes/day) and installing apps may serve as a minor inconvenience.

Yes, you must share your Facebook data. Twitter and Reddit are optional.

No, your information will not be sold or distributed to anyone.

Yes, this study is designed to ensure that all participant responses and data are kept confidential and secure. Only your data is collected (your friends’ data will not be collected) and all data is encrypted and stored on secure write-only servers. In fact, even if our web server were hacked, attackers would not be able to access your data. Data is only accessible to members of our trained research team, and the researchers are not individually reading all of your messages but rather sending them through an automatic text analysis that pulls our scores for particular language patterns (e.g. such as amount of positive words). We have been running such studies for upwards of a decade. You can see a list of our past scientific publications here: http://wwbp.org/publications.html

Posts you make on your own Facebook wall, texts you send from your Android phone, tweets you post on your Twitter page (optional), as well as Reddit posts you make (optional) will be collected.

No, we will not collect direct messages or content others post on your Facebook wall.

Contact mylifecourse@cs.stonybrook.edu with your request.

Please send an email to mylifecourse@cs.stonybrook.edu and describe your problem.

Yes, you can take a survey more than once a day. Note that you will only be paid for the surveys that you are texted links to complete. Since there are 3 text surveys a day, you can therefore only respond to 3 surveys a day for 14 days.

No, your data will not be shared with Stony Brook Hospital Emergency Room providers. Data is only accessible to members of our trained research team.

No, your health insurance provider will not have access to your data. Data is only accessible to members of our trained research team.

No, the data will not be saved to your patient portal. All data is encrypted and stored on secure write-only servers.

No, this study is conducted independent of your medical care. Data collected will not be available to your healthcare providers and will not affect your medical care.