  Music, an integral part of our lives, which is not only a source of
entertainment but plays an important role in mental well-being by impacting
moods, emotions and other affective states. Music preferences and listening
strategies have been shown to be associated with the psychological well-being
of listeners including internalized symptomatology and depression. However,
till date no studies exist that examine time-varying music consumption, in
terms of acoustic content, and its association with users' well-being. In the
current study, we aim at unearthing static and dynamic patterns prevalent in
active listening behavior of individuals which may be used as indicators of
risk for depression. Mental well-being scores and listening histories of 541
Last.fm users were examined. Static and dynamic acoustic and emotion-related
features were extracted from each user's listening history and correlated with
their mental well-being scores. Results revealed that individuals with greater
depression risk resort to higher dependency on music with greater
repetitiveness in their listening activity. Furthermore, the affinity of
depressed individuals towards music that can be perceived as sad was found to
be resistant to change over time. This study has large implications for future
work in the area of assessing mental illness risk by exploiting digital
footprints of users via online music streaming platforms.
