A recent study by mathematicians Mara Nagelin and colleagues from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich suggests that typing on a keyboard and moving a mouse can indicate how stressed a person feels better than heart rate, commonly used to detect stress. The researchers recorded mouse and keyboard behavior, as well as heart rates, of 90 people while completing realistic office tasks. According to the study, stressed people left more typing errors and wrote in short, choppy bursts, while relaxed individuals took fewer but longer breaks from writing.
The link between stress and typing/mouse behavior can be explained by its negative effect on our brain’s ability to process information, which then affects our motor skills, says psychologist and co-author Jasmine Kerr, who also works at ETH. Psychiatrist and stress researcher Mazda Adli commented on the study’s methodology stating that “this is an interesting approach to examining individual susceptibility to stress” and further indicates it could be used to examine how susceptible an individual is to stress and disruption under certain conditions.
Adli further emphasizes that not all stress is negative and can, in fact, be stimulating and lead to good performance or even a comfortable feeling. The problem arises when stress peaks cannot be subsided, and those affected can no longer recover from them. The study aims to help workers identify stress early and not create a monitoring tool for companies.
Adli suggests that from an occupational medical point of view, an application would only be conceivable if absolute anonymity was maintained. In everyday work, many people feel distracted by constantly new e-mails, chat messages, or telephone calls, according to Adli. In such cases, it makes sense to shield oneself from disturbing stimuli by only reading e-mails every two hours, signaling when one doesn’t want to be bothered, or taking regular breaks.
