Digital support for female students in physical education universities in Japan

Abstract

Abstract Alongside acquiring specialized knowledge and accomplishing developmental tasks, athletic colleges require young athletes to also be active. We investigated the use of a smartphone application, ME-FULLNESS, as an unprecedented support method for female college students currently enrolled in athletic colleges. ME-FULLNESS is an application that infers one’s psychological state from their facial information and improves their psychological state with music, vibration, and images that match that psychological state. We conducted a psychological survey with purposively selected female university students (18 to 24 years) at the International Pacific University in Okayama, Japan, before and after one month of using ME-FULLNESS ( N  = 76) and a group of non-users ( N  = 25). The app-using group showed significant improvement in depressive symptoms ( p  = 0.002), anxiety symptoms ( p  = 0.000), stress ( p  = 0.000), insomnia ( p  = 0.002), severity of premenstrual syndrome ( p  = 0.000), and resilience scores ( p  = 0.000), while the non-app-using group showed improvement in anxiety ( p  = 0.009) and resilience scores ( p  = 0.000). This study suggests that using the ME-FULLNESS app may improve depression, stress, insomnia, and resilience among athletic female students, positively contributing to their college life and sports performance.