Theory-Based Social and Non-Social Engagement Features in Smoking Cessation Mobile Apps: A Content Analysis

Qinghua Yang
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Qinghua Yang: Bob Schieffer College of Communication, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX 76129, USA

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 17, 1-14

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 ( ? = 0.30, p < 0.001), social announcement ( ? = 0.21, p < 0.05), and social referencing ( ? = 0.18, p < 0.05) were significant predictors of user engagement. Regarding the non-social engagement features, personal environment changes ( ? = 0.38, p < 0.001), progress tracking ( ? = 0.18, p < 0.05), and personalized recommendations ( ? = 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.

Keywords: mobile applications; engagement features; smoking cessation; content analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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