This research is really interesting, and is consistent with what is known about Bipolar Disorder…

This research is really interesting, and is consistent with what is known about Bipolar Disorder, but I sure wish the headline was more responsible. What researcher have done is trained a program to recognize patterns of expression common to people with Bipolar Disorder…this is not the same thing as training a program to detect, based on someone’s activity, whether it is likely they have Bipolar disorder. A person may start to post more frequently and use more “high energy” words for a lot of other reasons, including a simple improvement in life circumstances. Until the program is used to distinguish between these instances, and to control for these and other confounds, it can’t actually detect with any validity whether someone is having a manic phase.