MOCHA: Student Life Support and Encouragement Platform

Overview

The COVID-19 pandemic drastically changed university students' lifestyles, shifting to online-centric learning and reducing physical activity opportunities. This project analyzes student behavior patterns and develops systems to support student life using mobile passive sensing technologies.

Approach

• MOCHA (MobiCom 2022): A platform for sharing and tracking room-level locations on a university campus using Bluetooth beacons detected by smartphones, supporting contact tracing, congestion monitoring, and reservation services
• Physical activity analysis (IPSJ 2021): Smartphone-based collection and analysis of daily physical activity data from first-year college students during the COVID-19 online-learning period

Results

• MOCHA was deployed to over 6,500 users for one year; outlining app benefits encouraged installation, and reinforced connections in small private groups encouraged continuous usage
• Analysis of 305 first-year students over 10 weeks revealed decreased step counts and prolonged sedentary time during commuting and extracurricular activity hours, demonstrating that online-centric lifestyles reduce weekday physical activity

Significance

MOCHA demonstrates a scalable approach to understanding and supporting student behavior and well-being on university campuses. The insights from physical activity analysis during COVID-19 provide evidence-based foundations for designing interventions to promote healthier student lifestyles.