Digital revolution in depression: A technologies update for clinicians

Technology is becoming increasingly intertwined with our lives every year. As technology advances, it offers promising new methods to help detect, manage, and improve the care of major depressive disorder (MDD). Unlike other specialties in medicine, psychiatry has been slow to adopt new technologies. Other areas of medicine, primarily cardiology and oncology, have made use of technological methods to patients' great benefits. In psychiatry, new technological methods can predict which antidepressants will be most effective, provide therapies to patients, and empower patients to manage their own medical records. We offer an overview to new technologies and their applications to psychiatry for novices. Our particular focus is big data, machine learning, mobile applications, and blockchain technology. We summarise the uses of technology as assisting physicians in decision making, facilitating patient-patient interaction, and securely storing and managing health-care data. We suggest possible advantages and challenges to adopting these methods. Continued research and technological innovation is needed to improve the psychiatrist's toolbox and to monitor the adoption and consequences of new technologies.