About

Jane Mikkelson is a faculty member at Yale University, affiliated with the Humanities, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and Comparative Literature departments. Her research focuses on the intersection of poetry, philosophy, and literary criticism within the Persian and South Asian traditions. She has contributed to scholarly discussions on planetary poetics, the philosophical and poetic significance of the phoenix in Avicenna's philosophy and Bedil's poetry, and the conceptualization of world literature during the early modern period. Her work explores how poetic figures and literary practices articulate complex ideas about selfhood, imagination, and intercultural relations. Mikkelson has examined the ways in which Persian and South Asian poets, such as Saʿdī and Bedil, engage with themes of desire, beauty, and philosophical reflection, often blurring boundaries between genres and modalities. She has also contributed to the understanding of comparative poetics, analyzing how small-scale poetic corpora generate environments for conceptual and aesthetic alignment across cultures. Her scholarship emphasizes the dynamic interplay between literature, philosophy, and cultural context in shaping literary traditions and ideas of world literature.

Research topics

• Epistemology
• Philosophy
• Literature
• Art
• History
• Political Science
• Sociology
• Aesthetics
• Computer Science
• Archaeology
• Psychology
• Linguistics
• Psychoanalysis
• Law
• Art history

Selected publications

• Lalla of Kashmir

  2025-01-01

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Mental Health Apps and Crisis Support: Exploring the Impact of 988

  Psychiatric Services · 2025-08-21 · 3 citations

  article

  OBJECTIVE: Mental health apps continue to grow in popularity. However, although these apps offer many benefits, they are not equipped to manage mental health crises alone, and they often refer users to external resources. In 2022, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline was officially recognized as the U.S. national standard suicide hotline. This naturalistic experimental study aimed to assess the crisis resources offered within these apps as well as their responsiveness to implementation of national guidelines. METHODS: The authors conducted a thorough search of the mental health app marketplace in January 2024 and collected a representative sample of mental health apps (N=302) available to download. A team of raters assessed each app with a modified version of the American Psychiatric Association's app evaluation model and specifically examined the presence and functionality of crisis resources. RESULTS: Findings indicated that 15% of the apps referred users to 988, and 24% offered an alternative hotline. Of note, 14 apps that had collectively been downloaded >3.5 million times provided incorrect or nonfunctional alternative crisis hotlines. CONCLUSIONS: To avoid the harmful effects of a nonfunctional hotline, within-app crisis resources require thorough screening and regular developer updates.

  PublisherDOI

• The Technology Use Survey: An Actionable Digital Literacy Assessment that Matches Clients to Training Resources

  Community Mental Health Journal · 2025-09-09 · 2 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Five years of app evaluation: Insights from a framework in practice – a systematic review on the m-health index and navigation database

  Internet Interventions · 2025-11-20 · 3 citations

  reviewOpen access

  As the number of health apps continues to rise, concerns about their quality, privacy standards, and adherence to evidence-based healthcare remain. While multiple frameworks exist to assess app quality, a standardized, cross-domain approach is lacking. The M-Health Index and Navigation Database (MIND) comprises a structured framework for app evaluation and a publicly accessible database that applies this framework to rate individual apps. This allows for longitudinal tracking of quality metrics and comparisons across different health app categories. We conducted a systematic review to identify studies that utilized either the MIND database or its framework to evaluate health apps. Studies were included if they used MIND in their methodology to evaluate health apps. Data were synthesized descriptively, and two-proportion z-tests were applied for comparisons. We identified 22 studies, including 16 evaluating commercially available health apps. The most frequently assessed metrics were privacy policies, operating system compatibility, cost, and evidence backing. Only 15 % of mental health apps were supported by feasibility or efficacy studies, nearly one-fourth lacked a privacy policy, and 44 % explicitly disclosed sharing personal health information with third parties. Similar deficiencies were found across non-mental health domains, indicating that concerns regarding app quality and data privacy may not be unique to mental health. Our findings suggest that evidence and privacy concerns are prevalent across almost all health app categories, highlighting the need for stronger regulatory oversight and improved validation standards. MIND serves as a valuable tool for evaluating digital health apps, supporting both app selection and cross-domain quality comparisons. • The MIND database is a valuable tool for assessing app quality, enabling longitudinal tracking and cross-domain comparisons. • Only 15% of general mental health apps had feasibility or efficacy data. Apps in other health domains showed similarly low evidence. • Nearly one-fourth of mental health apps lacked a privacy policy. Smoking cessation apps had lower rates of available policies. • Nearly half of mental health apps shared PHI; pneumology and COVID-19 apps had lower, and cardiovascular apps had higher rates. • The quality issues observed in mental health apps are not unique but reflective of wider concerns across healthcare domains.

  PublisherDOI

• Bridging the Digital Divide with Accessible Digital Literacy Tools, Training, and Tests: Sharing the DOORS Program

  NEJM Catalyst · 2025-11-19 · 2 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Social Media Detox and Youth Mental Health

  JAMA Network Open · 2025-11-24 · 6 citations

  articleOpen access

  Importance: The association between social media use and youth mental health remains poorly understood, with recent systematic reviews reporting inconsistent and conflicting findings. These discrepancies reflect the overreliance on self-reported estimates of use, lack of passive monitoring of behavior, and limited measurement of momentary mental health states. Objectives: To examine the association between objective social media use, problematic engagement, and mental health outcomes in young adults, as well as evaluate the outcomes of a 1-week social media detox intervention on behavior and mental health symptoms. Design, Setting, and Participants: A remote cohort study conducted in the US using a national recruitment registry between March 2024 and March 2025, where participants completed a 2-week observational baseline, followed by an optional 1-week social media detox intervention. Participants were young adults (aged 18-24 years) with a smartphone and English fluency. Exposures: Social media use of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and X over a 2-week baseline period, followed by an optional 1-week detox intervention. Main Outcomes and Measures: The main outcomes were detox changes in symptoms of depression (Patient Health Questionnaire-9), anxiety (Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7), insomnia (Insomnia Severity Index), and loneliness (University of California, Los Angeles Loneliness Scale), as well as within-participant changes in behavior including screen use, communication, mobility, and momentary mental health states. Results: Of 417 enrolled participants, 373 (mean [SD] age, 21.0 [1.9] years) completed baseline assessments, with 295 (79.1%) opting into a detox intervention that reduced symptoms anxiety by 16.1% (-1.9 reduction; Cohen d, -0.44; 95% CI, -0.56 to -0.32), depression by 24.8% (-2.0 reduction; Cohen d, -0.37; 95% CI, -0.49 to -0.32) and insomnia by 14.5% (-2.1 reduction; Cohen d, -0.44; 95% CI, -0.56 to -0.32). There was no significant change in loneliness (Cohen d, -0.40; 95% CI, -0.17 to 0.06). Marginal increases were seen in home time (β, 42.8; 95% CI, 24.3 to 61.2 minutes) and screen duration (β, 15.4; 95% CI, 4.9 to 25.9 seconds), with considerable within-person variability. No other changes in behavioral or EMA-based features were observed after the detox. Conclusions and Relevance: In this cohort of young adults, reducing social media use for 1 week was associated with reductions in symptoms of depression, anxiety, and insomnia; however, the durability of these therapeutic outcomes and their associations with behavior warrant further study, particularly in more diverse populations.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Assessing Digital Phenotyping for App Recommendations and Sustained Engagement: Cohort Study (Preprint)

  2024-05-29

  preprintOpen access

  <sec> <title>BACKGROUND</title> Low engagement with mental health apps continues to limit their impact. New approaches to help match patients to the right app may increase engagement by ensuring the app they are using is best suited to their mental health needs. </sec> <sec> <title>OBJECTIVE</title> This study aims to pilot how digital phenotyping, using data from smartphone sensors to infer symptom, behavioral, and functional outcomes, could be used to match people to mental health apps and potentially increase engagement </sec> <sec> <title>METHODS</title> After 1 week of collecting digital phenotyping data with the mindLAMP app (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center), participants were randomly assigned to the digital phenotyping arm, receiving feedback and recommendations based on those data to select 1 of 4 predetermined mental health apps (related to mood, anxiety, sleep, and fitness), or the control arm, selecting the same apps but without any feedback or recommendations. All participants used their selected app for 4 weeks with numerous metrics of engagement recorded, including objective screentime measures, self-reported engagement measures, and Digital Working Alliance Inventory scores. </sec> <sec> <title>RESULTS</title> A total of 82 participants enrolled in the study; 17 (21%) dropped out of the digital phenotyping arm and 18 (22%) dropped out from the control arm. Across both groups, few participants chose or were recommended the insomnia or fitness app. The majority (39/47, 83%) used a depression or anxiety app. Engagement as measured by objective screen time and Digital Working Alliance Inventory scores were higher in the digital phenotyping arm. There was no correlation between self-reported and objective metrics of app use. Qualitative results highlighted the importance of habit formation in sustained app use. </sec> <sec> <title>CONCLUSIONS</title> The results suggest that digital phenotyping app recommendation is feasible and may increase engagement. This approach is generalizable to other apps beyond the 4 apps selected for use in this pilot, and practical for real-world use given that the study was conducted without any compensation or external incentives that may have biased results. Advances in digital phenotyping will likely make this method of app recommendation more personalized and thus of even greater interest. </sec>

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Assessing Digital Phenotyping for App Recommendations and Sustained Engagement: Cohort Study

  JMIR Formative Research · 2024-09-20 · 8 citations

  articleOpen access

  Background Low engagement with mental health apps continues to limit their impact. New approaches to help match patients to the right app may increase engagement by ensuring the app they are using is best suited to their mental health needs. Objective This study aims to pilot how digital phenotyping, using data from smartphone sensors to infer symptom, behavioral, and functional outcomes, could be used to match people to mental health apps and potentially increase engagement Methods After 1 week of collecting digital phenotyping data with the mindLAMP app (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center), participants were randomly assigned to the digital phenotyping arm, receiving feedback and recommendations based on those data to select 1 of 4 predetermined mental health apps (related to mood, anxiety, sleep, and fitness), or the control arm, selecting the same apps but without any feedback or recommendations. All participants used their selected app for 4 weeks with numerous metrics of engagement recorded, including objective screentime measures, self-reported engagement measures, and Digital Working Alliance Inventory scores. Results A total of 82 participants enrolled in the study; 17 (21%) dropped out of the digital phenotyping arm and 18 (22%) dropped out from the control arm. Across both groups, few participants chose or were recommended the insomnia or fitness app. The majority (39/47, 83%) used a depression or anxiety app. Engagement as measured by objective screen time and Digital Working Alliance Inventory scores were higher in the digital phenotyping arm. There was no correlation between self-reported and objective metrics of app use. Qualitative results highlighted the importance of habit formation in sustained app use. Conclusions The results suggest that digital phenotyping app recommendation is feasible and may increase engagement. This approach is generalizable to other apps beyond the 4 apps selected for use in this pilot, and practical for real-world use given that the study was conducted without any compensation or external incentives that may have biased results. Advances in digital phenotyping will likely make this method of app recommendation more personalized and thus of even greater interest.

  PublisherDOI

• Expansive Comparison: Thinking across Persian and English Terms and Temporalities

  2024-07-31

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Fayzi's Planetary Poetics

  Comparative Studies of South Asia Africa and the Middle East · 2024-12-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This article recovers a theory of poetry articulated by the Indian poet laureate Abul Fayz Fayzi (d. 1595) in “The White Tide of Dawn” (“Tabashir-i subh”), the Persian prose preface to his collected poems. Fayzi's oblique style of thought wanders through shifting metaphors and lyrical prose, and his creative mode of exposition scales up into what this article calls Fayzi's planetary poetics—a way of recognizing, through poetry, how experience, language, and the pursuit of truth are constrained by the earthbound nature of human perspective. Fayzi's theory maintains canny clarity about such limitations, regarding poetry as a form capacious (and honest) enough to accommodate inquiry's ambitions and failures. Reading Fayzi alongside scientific, philosophical, and literary-theoretical texts widely available in early modern India, this article shows how key leitmotifs in Fayzi's essay (the mathematical concept of the Earth's center; the desert as space of discovery and transformation; the lunar eclipse) come together in a powerful compact of hubris, fragility, and creativity. Fayzi's planetary poetics actuates multiple senses of “theory” (as a set of principles; as a way of seeing; as a means to freedom) and offers a compelling, important contribution to ongoing discussions about the ghazal, the lyric, and poetry itself.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Bridget Dwyer

  Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

  8 shared

• James A. Burns

  Harvard University

  8 shared

• Matthew Flathers

  Hadassah Medical Center

  8 shared

• John Torous

  Harvard University

  8 shared

• Elana Perlmutter

  Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

  8 shared

• N. Raghu Ram

  Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

  6 shared

• Kelly Chen

  Harvard University

  6 shared

• Sonam Kachru

  Yale University

  5 shared