By Anja Opitz
Stress researcher Mazda Adli is looking for residents of the capital to participate in the “Your Emotional City” project.
Where in our city do Berliners feel comfortable? Where safe, where afraid? Where lonely, where happy? That’s what stress researcher Mazda Adli (52) wants to find out in the research project “Your emotional city” – with the help of the Berliners themselves!
“Cities trigger emotions in us, both pleasant and unpleasant,” explains Adli. On the one hand, they offer many opportunities for individual development, culture and prosperity. On the other hand, they are often anonymous and dirty, there is social injustice, crime, violence, they cause stress, sometimes even illness.
“We want to understand how exactly the city influences our feelings,” says the chief physician at the Fliedner Klinik Berlin and head of the neuro-urbanism research group at the Charité. “This knowledge can help us to make the city of the future healthy and worth living in.”
Citizen Science Project
What is special about “Your Emotional City”: “It is a citizen science project. The people who take part become researchers themselves!”
How to join “We use the “Urban Mind” app for our project. From August 22, anyone can download it for free from the App Store and get started.”
For a week, the app will ask you to answer questions three times a day. You are asked about emotions, about things around you that trigger these emotions, how crowded the place is where you are, whether there are familiar or strange people around you, and much more. m. “We have information about where the person is currently located via GPS. This puts together an emotional map of the city.”
The scientists then want to connect this map with things that we already know about our city: urban planning features, the distribution of green spaces, fine dust pollution, noise pollution, etc. “This gives us information about how life in the city affects people affects people. This is important information that can help us ensure that our cities remain livable places, even if e.g. B. getting bigger, getting fuller, getting louder.”
The collaborative project between the Charité, Humboldt University, TU, Futurium and numerous other partners is set to run for three years. It starts with Berlin, later other cities around the world will be explored in this way
“My vision is that we get something like a weather map that reflects the current mood of the city.
In this way you could see where a lot of stress and tension or even loneliness are playing a role – and offer help exactly where it is particularly needed.”