Adoption Of Smartphones Research Articles

Ecological momentary interventions for mental health: A scoping review.

BackgroundThe development of mobile computing technology has enabled the delivery of psychological interventions while people go about their everyday lives. The original visions of the potential of these “ecological momentary interventions” were presented over a decade ago, and the widespread adoption of smartphones in the intervening years has led to a variety of research studies exploring the feasibility of these aspirations. However, there is a dearth of research describing the different dimensions, characteristics, and features of these interventions, as constructed.ObjectiveTo provide an overview of the definitions given for “ecological momentary interventions” in the treatment of common mental health disorders, and describe the set of technological and interaction possibilities which have been used in the design of these interventions.MethodsA systematic search identified relevant literature published between 2009 and 2020 in the PubMed, PsycInfo, and ACM Guide to the Computing Literature databases. Following screening, data were extracted from eligible articles using a standardized extraction worksheet. Selected articles were then thematically categorized.ResultsThe search identified 583 articles of which 64 met the inclusion criteria. The interventions target a range of mental health problems, with diverse aims, intervention designs and evaluation approaches. The studies employed a variety of features for intervention delivery, but recent research is overwhelmingly comprised of studies based on smartphone apps (30 of 42 papers that described an intervention). Twenty two studies employed sensors for the collection of data in order to provide just-in-time support or predict psychological states.ConclusionsWith the shift towards smartphone apps, the vision for EMIs has begun to be realised. Recent years have seen increased exploration of the use of sensors and machine learning, but the role of humans in the delivery of EMI is also varied. The variety of capabilities exhibited by EMIs motivates development of a more precise vocabulary for capturing both automatic and human tailoring of these interventions.

The Role of User Resistance and Social Influences on the Adoption of Smartphone

This study examines the factors affecting users' adoption of the smartphone as an innovative device. Prior studies on the acceptance of computing devices have primarily focused on the impact of the technological benefits and characteristics. Meanwhile, there is a lack of research approaching user resistance, which hinders the diffusion of an innovation. In particular, the smartphone is a highly communication-oriented device that people's attitude and evaluation critically influence its further diffusion. However, few studies have validated this link in the smartphone adoption context. Therefore, this study has attempted to build a research model that explains factors affecting user's resistance to smartphone adoption by integrating technological and social antecedents forming the resistance, and empirically analyzes the data obtained through a survey. As a result, the relative complexity and relative advantages presented in the theory of innovation diffusion had a direct impact on the user's resistance.

Exploring engagement among mobile app developers – Insights from mining big data in user generated content

PurposeThe Web 3.0 has been hugely enabled by smartphones and new generation mobile applications. With the growing adoption of smartphones, the use of mobile applications has grown exponentially and so has the development of mobile applications. This study is an attempt to understand the issues and challenges faced in the mobile applications domain using discussions made on Twitter based on mining of user generated content.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses 89,908 unique tweets to understand the nature of the discussions. These tweets are analyzed using descriptive, content and network analysis. Further using transaction cost economics, the findings are reviewed to develop practice insights about the ecosystem.FindingsFindings indicate that the discussions are mostly skewed toward a positive polarity and positive user experiences. The tweeters are predominantly application developers who are interacting more with marketers and less with individual users.Research limitations/implicationsMost of these applications are for individual use (B2C) and not for enterprise usage. There are very few individual users who contribute to these discussions. The predominant users are application reviewers or bloggers of review websites who use the recently developed applications and discuss their thoughts on the same.Practical implicationsThe results may be useful in varied domains which are planning to expand their reach to a larger audience using mobile applications and for marketers who primarily focus on promotional content.Social implicationsThe domain of mobile applications on social media is still restricted to promotions and digital marketing and may solely be used for the purpose of link building by application developers. As such, the discussions could provide inputs towards mobile phone manufacturers and ecosystem providers on what are the real issues these communities are facing while developing these applications.Originality/valueThe study uses mixed research methodology for mining experiences in the domain of mobile application developers using social media analytics and transaction cost economics. The discussion on the findings provides inputs for policy-making and possible intervention areas.

REINVENTING INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASE (IBD) CLINICAL TRIAL RECRUITMENT USING NOVEL DIGITAL MEDICINE TOOLS

Issues with patient recruitment and enrolment are the primary barriers for missed clinical trial timelines; 8 out of 10 clinical trials are delayed or unable to be completed because of the lack of timely patient recruitment. Current patient recruitment efforts are inefficient as they are typically dependent on the manual screening of patients during face-to-face visits. With the rapid development of digital communication platforms within healthcare and the broad consumer adoption of smartphones, there are increasing opportunities to overcome some of these barriers.

REINVENTING INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASE (IBD) CLINICAL TRIAL RECRUITMENT USING NOVEL DIGITAL MEDICINE TOOLS

Abstract Background Issues with patient recruitment and enrolment are the primary barriers for missed clinical trial timelines; 8 out of 10 clinical trials are delayed or unable to be completed because of the lack of timely patient recruitment. Current patient recruitment efforts are inefficient as they are typically dependent on the manual screening of patients during face-to-face visits. With the rapid development of digital communication platforms within healthcare and the broad consumer adoption of smartphones, there are increasing opportunities to overcome some of these barriers. Digital platforms have great potential for research and clinical care of chronic conditions, such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), an often debilitating disease that currently affects over three million adults in the United States. In this paper, we utilized a digital medicine platform (Trialengage, Rx.Health, New York, NY) to improve patient recruitment for an ongoing mindfulness trial which had limited success in face-face enrolment (16 patients over 6 months). Methods Patients enrolled in the Mount Sinai Crohn’s and Colitis Registry (MSCCR) were remotely outreached about enrolling in a mindfulness study for IBD patients. A text-based clinical rules engine was used to inform registry patients about the trial and to allow patients to indicate interest in participating via text message. Eligible IBD patients were bulk “prescribed” a notification through RxHealth’s digital medicine platform, RxUniverse. Characteristics of the enrolled population, characteristics of patients who responded, and timeliness of responses were analyzed. Results Of the 1364 patients in the MSCCR with available phone numbers, 270 patients affirmatively replied they wanted to participate in the study. Patients who opted-in to receiving more information about the study were more likely to have inadequate control of their IBD (25.64% vs 18.97%; P<.05) and more likely to have a recent history of depression based on a validated patient health questionnaire (15.38% vs 8.4%; P<.05) than those who opted-out. There were no significant differences in terms of race, gender, and age between the two groups. In terms of timeliness of response among those enrolled, the majority of patients responded within 2 hours of notification. Conclusion Digital medicine software platforms can facilitate large-scale, lower-effort recruitment of eligible patients for clinical trials. Future research should be done to explore their expanded use for recruitment, patient education, and study data collection. Additional technologies such as patient-powered networks, social media, e-recruiting bots, and other remote engagement platforms can aid clinical trials by saving time and reducing costs of patient recruitment.

Analysing consumers smartphone adoption decisions using qualitative dimensions: a multi-criteria decision approach

The rapid technological advancement and its proliferation in the form of smartphones and other information and communication technology (ICT) have been evident in the present global markets. Therefore, it has become imperative for companies to better understand the underlying decision process to harness this market opportunity. The present research work aims to embrace the theoretical underpinnings of the technology acceptance model (TAM) and multi-attribute utility theory (MAUT) to explore and prioritise smartphone adoption factors, and uses them to support the customer decision of smartphone selection on certain qualitative dimensions. Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach based on fuzzy sets, analytic hierarchy process (AHP), and technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) are further employed to support customer decisions of smartphone adoption. The results reveal that smartphone brand value and value for money are key factors that shape the smartphone purchase decision.

Smart(Phone) Investing? A within Investor-Time Analysis of New Technologies and Trading Behavior

Using transaction-level data from two German banks, we study the effects of smartphones on investor behavior. Comparing trades by the same investor in the same month across different platforms, we find that smartphones increase purchasing of riskier and lottery-type assets and chasing past returns. After the adoption of smartphones, investors do not substitute trades across platforms and buy also riskier, lottery-type, and hot investments on other platforms. Using smartphones to trade specific assets or during specific hours contributes to explain our results. Digital nudges and the device screen size do not mechanically drive our results. Smartphone effects are not transitory. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Smart(Phone) Investing? A within Investor-Time Analysis of New Technologies and Trading Behavior

Using transaction-level data from two German banks, we study the effects of smartphones on investor behavior. Comparing trades by the same investor in the same month across different platforms, we find that smartphones increase purchasing of riskier and lottery-type assets and chasing past returns. After the adoption of smartphones, investors do not substitute trades across platforms and buy also riskier, lottery-type, and hot investments on other platforms. Using smartphones to trade specific assets or during specific hours contributes to explain our results. Digital nudges and the device screen size do not mechanically drive our results. Smartphone effects are not transitory.

Recognizing Social Media-Related Depression

Depression and anxiety in adolescents and young adults is reaching epidemic proportions. From 2005 to 2014, the overall prevalence of depression in adolescents aged 12 to 17 increased from 8.7% to 11.3% and from 2011 to 2018, rates of depression and anxiety in college students increased from 31.5% to 42.2% and 51.5% to 63.6% respectively.1,2 Psychological well-being, a closely related construct, decreased suddenly for adolescents around 2012 and has remained low since that time.3 These trends have been mirrored by a simultaneous increase since 2012 in smartphone adoption and screen-time, particularly social media usage, among American adolescents. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated these trends: adults in April and May of 2020 were three times as likely to screen positive for depressive and anxiety disorders compared to the year prior.4 Today, social media is omnipresent in the lives of adolescents and adults. The Pew Research Center found that 84% of Americans aged 18-29 adults use at least one social media site and Piper Sandler Investment Research found that the average teen spends 12 hours per week on social media.5,6 Social media usage is a new and important consideration when dealing with and organizing efforts to combat rising depression and anxiety.

Users’ Behavioral Intention and Adoption of Mobile Shopping Applications on the Smartphone Platform

Research background: We draw on a substantial body of theoretical and empirical research on users’ behavioral intention and adoption of mobile shopping applications on the smartphone platform globally, Purpose of the article: We inspected, used, and replicated survey data from eMarketer, Adobe, Bizrate Insights, Econsultancy, eMarketer, and Retail Dive, performing analyses and making estimates regarding smartphone retail m-commerce sales in the U.S. ($), top reasons EU consumers use smartphones in stores, and activities EU smartphone/tablet owners have done using apps on their smartphone/tablet in the past month. Methods: Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data and test the proposed conceptual model. Findings & Value added: Mobile payment is a user-oriented manner of finalizing transactions as a result of the growing fashionableness of smartphones and the advancement of associated technologies. Superior ubiquity of mobile devices and swift mobile internet access result in higher quality offers and higher degrees of adoption of smartphones in commercial operations. Mobile retailers can raise the pool of prospective mobile purchasers by selecting individuals who are more knowledgeable in online buying and smartphone adoption. Consumers at a preliminary mobile shopping readiness stage allocate more relevance to omnipresence when compared with the habit in determining purchase intentions. As mobile consumers download and employ more applications, they confront the diminishing expenditures of acquiring further software.

Smartphone-guided secondary prevention for patients with coronary artery disease.

IntroductionCoronary artery disease (CAD) is the leading cause of death worldwide. Lifestyle change is a crucial part of secondary prevention. Only 30% of CAD patients follow the corresponding guideline recommendations. The widespread adoption of smartphones offers the opportunity to integrate secondary prevention into the daily routine of CAD patients.MethodsWe developed an app to integrate secondary prevention into CAD patients’ everyday life (smartphone-guided secondary prevention, SGSP). The app provided a daily 15-minute program that included video-guided exercises, video sessions with background information about CAD, and a tool to record blood pressure and heart rate once a day. The SGSP app was tested with the primary outcome of 28-day adherence. The secondary outcome was a composite of (1) self-reported behavioral changes, (2) gain of knowledge about cardiovascular risk factors, and (3) an increase in quality of life.ResultsOf the 66 patients screened, 43 (65%) were included into the study and, of those, 17 (40%) used the app continuously for 28 days. From this group, 14 (82%) were physically more active and ten (59%) improved their dietary habits. Usage of the SGSP app was also associated with a gain of knowledge about cardiovascular risk factors (70% physical activity, 59% healthy diet).ConclusionThe regular use of a SGSP app appears to support lifestyle changes in patients with CAD.

In-Season Assessment of Cotton Nitrogen Status from a Handheld Smartphone and an Unmanned Aerial System

The widespread adoption of smartphones and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has the potential to ease collection of in-season cotton nitrogen (N) status. Subsequently, in-season cotton N status could be used to drive management decisions. The utility and limitations of these new platforms must be assessed and compared to current in-season measurements. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the ability of early- and late-season ground-based measurements to provide insight into cotton N status and to evaluate the ability of aerial-based measurements to correlate to ground-based measurements. Although measurements failed to correlate strongly across seasons to leaf N, moderate relationships (R2 = 0.453) between chlorophyll meter readings and the dark green color index (DGCI) measured from a smartphone were observed in late-season measurements. Poor relationships were found between early-season UAV-acquired vegetation indices (VIs) and leaf N. Analysis of a subset of the data indicated relationships between chlorophyll meter readings and chlorophyll concentrations predicted by DGCI were strong for ground-based measurements and moderate for UAV-based measurements. (R2 = 0.711 and R2 = 0.511, respectively). Although additional site-years including aerial-based data are needed, this study demonstrates the usefulness of UAV-based reflectance data and VIs in predicting in-season cotton N status. Furthermore, it appears handheld DGCI measurements have the potential to replace chlorophyll meter readings for late in-season measurements of cotton N status.

The Use of Smartphone Technology to Improve the Health of Sickle Cell Patients

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a serious health issue in society. The United State continues to register a large number of people affected by the disease. Due to the prevalence and severity of this hereditary condition, reliable and effective monitoring and prevention systems are needed. Smartphone technologies have the potential of improving health outcomes of people with SCD by promoting the empowerment and health literacy of people with SCD who live in underserved communities. The vast adoption of smartphones in the country provides an opportunity for the implementation of applications to support current healthcare systems. Mobile applications provide an opportunity to reform the healthcare sector by mitigating cost, yet maximizing accessibility, safety, and quality of care. The study aimed to provide insights into the use of smartphone technology and its impact on improving the health of SCD patients. A literature analysis methodology was adopted. The study found that smartphones provide enhanced means of sharing data and collaborating. The benefits of using smartphones in SCD management included pain tracking and monitoring, reinforcing treatment guidelines, and patient education.

Analysing consumers' smartphone adoption decisions using qualitative dimensions: a multi-criteria decision approach

Analysing consumers' smartphone adoption decisions using qualitative dimensions: a multi-criteria decision approach

Eye tracking technology to audit google analytics: Analysing digital consumer shopping journey in fashion m-retail

Rapid changes in digital consumer behaviour, influenced by exponential adoption of smartphones, require timely and sophisticated responses from retailers to these consumer needs. With a growing amount of big data available, fashion retailers need to innovate and develop more sophisticated analytics for new consumer behaviours such as m-commerce. This research has considered how Google Analytics data can be applied to develop customer journey maps to understand digital consumer behaviour. A multi-method research design was used, incorporating an innovative mobile eye tracking technology and mobile fashion consumer data from Google Analytics. Digital customers’ shopping journeys on the fashion retailer’s website were mapped using data sourced from eye tracking and Google Analytics, gathered in parallel. The comparison of these shopping journeys allowed a critical evaluation of the precision and usefulness of the Google Analytics database. Google Analytics tracked only half of the digital users’ activities, whereas eye tracking data documented digital consumers’ interaction with all elements of the fashion retailer’s website. The conclusion reached is that eye tracking can be used to audit the Google Analytics database for potential gaps in data and also to inform and improve marketing decision-making.

The efficacy of mobile health interventions used to manage acute or chronic pain: A systematic review.

Chronic pain is a significant health issue that affects approximately 50 million adults in the United States. Traditional interventions are not always an effective treatment strategy for pain control. However, the wide adoption of smartphones and the rapid growth of health information technologies over the past decade have created opportunities to use mobile health (mHealth) applications (apps) for pain tracking and self-management. In this PRISMA-compliant systematic review, we assessed the current U.S.-based research on pain-related mHealth apps to describe the app components and determine the efficacy of these interventions for persons with acute or chronic pain. We conducted a comprehensive search of five databases based on methodological guidelines from the Joanna Briggs Institute. We included articles reporting original data on mHealth interventions with pain intensity as a primary or secondary outcome and excluded articles that utilized multimodal interventions. Of the original 4959 articles, only five studies met the eligibility criteria. Most of the interventions included feasibility or pilot studies, and all studies were published between 2015 and 2018. Two of the five studies used visual analog scales. Only two of the studies reported statistically significant pain intensity outcomes, and considerable heterogeneity between the studies limited our ability to generalize findings or conduct a meta-analysis. Research investigating the components and efficacy of pain-related mHealth apps as interventions is an emerging field. To better understand the potential clinical benefits of mHealth apps designed to manage pain, further research is needed.

EbolApp – A digital tool for smart contact tracing in infectious diseases (HCID) outbreaks

Background: Outbreaks due to infectious diseases like Ebola virus disease require quick and proper epidemiological responses to implement effective countermeasures. Traditional epidemiological tools are often not easy to apply. PC-based digital tools can be cumbersome in field work. As smart phone adoption is very high in many parts of the world, smartphone-based tools could be an alternative. An app was developed for this purpose and tested in a proof-of-principle study. Methods and materials: EbolApp is an Android-based application that assigns identifiers to smartphones after installation and stores GSM/GPS tracking data on the mobile. With activated Bluetooth function any further device within a defined distance is recorded. If a user contracts a disease, ID-based user profiles are synchronized on a server by an alarm function, which informs any detected contact person and recommends a doctor's visit. Server data will be completely deleted afterwards. Individual movement profiles can be read out by authorized persons. A proof-of-principle analysis regarding compatibility and functionality was carried out by health care workers from a clinic for infectious diseases and tropical medicine. Results: On a total of 16 smartphones with Android version 6, 7 and 8, the app (Version 0.9) was installed without any problems. The complete app functionality was given for 13/16 smartphones (81.3%), no tracking was recorded in two, in one the app crashed while reading profiles. Battery consumption with continuously activated Bluetooth was significantly increased in 50% of users. Thirteen users were able to use the secure alarm function receiving corresponding contact warnings. Graphic mapping and temporal assignment of the motion profiles confirmed the correctness of the alarms. Conclusion: EbolApp is promising digital tool for contact tracing in infectious diseases. It allows fast track detection of contacts and can provide information as well as instructions to those which are at risk. This also may allow timely use of post-expositional vaccinations or medical therapies. The prerequisite is the adequate distribution of appropriate telephones within risk populations and compliance with corresponding data protection laws. In the updated Version 2.0, compatibility of the app has been improved again. A field trial in the Republic of Liberia is on the way.

Sybil Attack Identification for Crowdsourced Navigation: A Self-Supervised Deep Learning Approach

Crowdsourced navigation is becoming the prevalent automobile navigation solution with the widespread adoption of smartphones over the past decade, which supports a plethora of intelligent transportation system services. However, it is subjected to Sybil attacks that inject carefully designed adversarial GPS trajectories to compromise the data aggregation system and cause false traffic jams. Successful Sybil attacks have been launched against real crowdsourced navigation systems, yet defending such critical threats has seldom been studied. In this work, a novel deep generative model based on Bayesian deep learning is devised for Sybil attack identification. The proposed model exploits time-series features to embed trajectories in a latent distribution space, which serves as a basis for identifying ones generated by Sybil attacks. Case studies on three real-world vehicular trajectory datasets reveal that the proposed model improves the performance of state-of-the-art baselines by at least 76.6%. Additionally, a hyper-parameter test develops guidelines for parameter selection, and a fast training scheme is proposed and assessed to boost the model training efficiency.

Social Networks as Drivers for Technology Adoption: A Study from a Rural Mountain Area in Italy

Innovation processes includes social and communicative elements. The role of innovative technology for the development of farming systems is investigated in literature, but only a few studies deal with the influence of networks on the adoption of technologies by farmers. The aim of this paper is to verify if the adoption of smartphones for professional reasons by farmers is influenced by the networks to which farmers belong, the socio-demographic characteristics of the farmers, and their farm’s size. The case study is in the Valtellina valley, a rural mountain area in the north of Italy, where 53 livestock farmers were interviewed. The methodology is based on two steps. First, social network analysis is applied to diagnose the relationships of farmers in terms of connectivity and closeness and to detect the centrality measures of farmers in three different social relationships: production networks, market networks, and information exchange networks. A multiple linear regression model is then applied to test whether centrality measures of the three networks, the farmers’ socio-demographic characters, and the farm’s features drive the adoption of smartphones for professional reasons. Results suggest that the centrality measures in production networks positively drive the adoption of smartphones, while the centrality measures of market and information exchange networks do not have the same effect. At the same time, the farmers’ age negatively affects the use of smartphones for professional reasons, while the size of the herd, and the education and gender of farmers have no significant influence. The study contributes to the debate around the Agricultural Knowledge Innovation System and supports local policies based on the inclusion of farmers in the technological development in rural areas.

Smartphone Adoption on Fruit Marketing Communication: a Traders Perception

Smartphone is one of the information technology devices that widely used by traders in marketing activities. Aside from being a communication tool, traders also utilize smartphones to obtain market information and communicate about products and services to consumers. This study aims to analyze profile and perceptions of fruit traders in using smartphones as a marketing communication tool. This research employed quantitative method and descriptive analysis using five point Likert scale to examine the perception of fruit traders in Yogyakarta City. The results revealed that traders adopted smartphones on fruit marketing communication due to it perceived to provide a relative advantage, with a high level of ease of use, visible benefits, and low complexity and risk. Furthermore, Samsung, Telkomsel, and WhatsApp were brands of smartphones, telecommunications providers, and social media applications mostly chose by traders.