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Theory-Based Social and Non-Social Engagement Features in Smoking Cessation Mobile Apps: A Content Analysis
Yang, Qinghua
Yang, Qinghua
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MDPI
Date
2021
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Abstract
Despite the ubiquity of smartphone ownership and the increasing integration of social engagement features in smoking cessation apps to engage users, the social and non-social engagement features that are present in current smoking cessation apps and the effectiveness of these features in engaging users remain understudied. To fill the gap in the literature, a content analysis of free and paid smoking cessation mobile apps was conducted to examine (a) the presence of social features (i.e., social support, social announcement, and social referencing) and non-social engagement features (e.g., personal environmental changes, goal setting, progress tracking, reinforcement tracking, self-monitoring, and personalized recommendations) and (b) their relationships with user engagement scores measured by the Mobile App Rating Scale. In this study, 28.2% of the smoking cessation apps enable social announcement and 8.1% offered the social support feature. Only two apps provided a social referencing feature (1.3%). No app included reinforcement tracking, with the percentage of other non-social engagement features ranging from 9.4% to 49.0%. Social support (beta = 0.30, p < 0.001), social announcement (beta = 0.21, p < 0.05), and social referencing (beta = 0.18, p < 0.05) were significant predictors of user engagement. Regarding the non-social engagement features, personal environment changes (beta = 0.38, p < 0.001), progress tracking (beta = 0.18, p < 0.05), and personalized recommendations (beta = 0.37, p < 0.001) significantly predicted user engagement. The findings not only contribute to the mobile communication literature by applying and extending the theory-based mobile health apps engagement typology, but also inform the future architecture design of smoking cessation mobile apps.
Contents
Subject
mobile applications
engagement features
smoking cessation
content analysis
engagement features
smoking cessation
content analysis
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Department
Communication Studies