Mhealth apps face heavy scrutiny by young adult users

mhealth apps mobile technology

mhealth appsThis demographic appears to be picker about the applications that they will use for their health.

According to an article that was published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, mhealth app developers should take several valued characteristics and features into consideration as they create their products, particularly when they want young adults to be willing to use them.

The reason is that young adults are far more selective about the apps of this nature that they will use.

The article explained that “There is increasing interest from academics and clinicians in harnessing smartphone applications as a means of delivering behavioral interventions for health.” At the same time, it pointed out that there has yet to be a large amount of research conducted on the experiences and views of the users, and the potential users, of mhealth apps.

It appears as though there are several features and technologies desired from mhealth apps.

These expectations will be integral to remaining competitive within the rapidly growing mhealth application marketplace. There will be no lack of options out there and users will want to make sure that the apps they choose will fulfill their expectations with the features, capabilities and technologies that they want.

This is especially true, says the article, among young adults, where there is considerable research lacking. It stated that this is an “unfortunate omission”, as that group is made up of “a good number of mobile technology adopters”. As this will be one of the primary target markets for mhealth app developers, it is suggested that it would be a good idea to know who they are, how they behave, and what they want.

The purpose of the study whose results were detailed in the article was to look into the perspectives of young adults with greater depth, when it comes to changes in health behavior. More specifically, it was geared toward understanding their views and experiences regarding the features that may inspire changes in these behaviors, and the issues that encourage users in this age group to become more willing to use mhealth apps. What they found was that this age group is very discerning, and that they will not accept just any application.

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