Nan Gao, Sam Nolan, Kaixin Ji, Shakila Khan Rumi, Judith Simone Heinisch, Christoph Anderson, Klaus David, Flora D. Salim

Pandemics and epidemics have been an essential part of human history. It has powerfully shaped human civilization, affecting politics, economics, medicine, and everyday human lives. Home confinement, one of the social isolation restrictions, has proven to be an effective way to prevent a pandemic and significantly reduce the spread of the virus. However, these measures have also led to negative psychological effects, which can be more severe than the physical discomfort caused by the pandemic itself. To address this issue, it is crucial to understand how being confined at home affects people's psychological states and their use of digital devices. To this end, we conducted an in-situ study with 32 participants living in states affected by COVID-19 lockdowns for three weeks. We examined human emotions, social roles, well-being, and mobile usage behaviors and explored the predictability of affective states using digital traces. Extensive experimental results show that COVID-19 home confinement is associated with decreased valence and increased work time and that human well-being could be accurately inferred from mobile usage behaviors. We also present a set of interesting findings on how different factors of mobile usage affect human emotions. Overall, the findings of this research have great potential to inform the development of interventions and remote programs to support individuals in similar situations, such as those who are ill or undergoing post-operative home rehabilitation and home work.