Treatments for depression and anxiety have several behavioral and psychological targets and rely on varied strategies. Digital mental health treatments often employ feature-rich approaches addressing ...several targets and strategies. These treatments, often optimized for desktop computer use, are at odds with the ways people use smartphone applications. Smartphone use tends to focus on singular functions with easy navigation to desired tools. The IntelliCare suite of apps was developed to address the discrepancy between need for diverse behavioral strategies and constraints imposed by typical app use. Each app focuses on one strategy for a limited subset of clinical aims all pertinent to depression and anxiety. This study presents the uptake and usage of apps from the IntelliCare suite following an open deployment on a large app marketplace.
Thirteen lightweight apps, including 12 interactive apps and one Hub app that coordinates use across those interactive apps, were developed and made free to download on the Google Play store. De-identified app usage data from the first year of IntelliCare suite deployment were analyzed for this study.
In the first year of public availability, 5210 individuals downloaded one or more of the IntelliCare apps, for a total of 10,131 downloads. Nearly a third of these individuals (31.8%) downloaded more than one of these apps. The modal number of launches for each of the apps was 1, however the mean number of app launches per app ranged from 3.10 to 16.98, reflecting considerable variability in the use of each app.
The use rate of the IntelliCare suite of apps is higher than public deployments of other comparable digital resources. Our findings suggest that people will use multiple apps and provides support for the concept of app suites as a useful strategy for providing diverse behavioral strategies.
•Digital mental health treatments have many targets, which can be at odds with how people use smartphone apps•A suite 12 interactive apps and one coordinating Hub app were developed and made free to download on the Google Play store•In the first year, 5,210 individuals downloaded one or more IntelliCare apps, and many demonstrated sustained engagement•The use rate of the IntelliCare suite suggests that people will use multiple apps.•Suites of apps may be a useful strategy for providing diverse behavioral strategies
Mobile apps are critical in supporting the Indonesian provincial government during daily operations. Regarding their important role, these apps are the potential to become a target of malicious ...activity to gain access to government information. Hence, in this research, we conduct a security measurement of mobile apps affiliated with the provincial governments in Indonesia, aiming to provide a source of information for the app's developer to make further security improvements. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to conduct an empirical analysis related to this area, expecting to become a cornerstone for further research. In total, we found 162 mobile apps available on the Google Play Store and correlated to 31 province governments in Indonesia. We conducted standard mobile apps static analysis method, starting from metadata scraping of each provincial government-affiliated app available at the Google Play Store and measured their security based on several indicators, including access to sensitive permission, unprotected exported components, the adoption of binary protection mechanism, and the appearance of third-party tracker libraries. We found that 27.1% (44) government apps request at least two dangerous permission, over 5% of the apps embed the Advertisement library, 10% of the apps have more than five exported Activities, and 44 (25.94%) Indonesian government apps did not adopt any binary protection mechanism. Hence, these results can be tailored as a reference for the provincial government in determining the level of effectiveness and impact of an app when developing mobile-based software in the future.
Using Mobile Apps to Combat Fake News Becker, Danielle A.
Journal of electronic resources in medical libraries,
20/1/2/, Volume:
18, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Librarians and library professionals should challenge themselves to seek the most unbiased and truthful health news and information during a pandemic that has many patrons misled by fake news, ...disinformation, and misinformation. Through the use of mobile apps users can start to discern truth from lies, and users can learn how to more readily spot fake news. Mobile news apps also have advanced in their features, allowing users to share credible stories to stop the spread of fake news and disinformation and become part of the story by aiding in fact-checking, up-voting, and reporting false, misleading and biased news articles.
Online retailers are increasingly using augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies to solve mental and physical intangibility issues in a product evaluation. Moreover, the ...technologies are easily available and accessible to consumers via their smartphones. The authors conducted three experiments to examine consumer responses to technology interfaces (AR/VR and mobile apps) for hedonic and utilitarian products. The results show that AR is easier to use (vs. app), and users find AR more responsive when buying a hedonic (vs. utilitarian) product. Touch interface users are likely to have a more satisfying experience and greater recommendation intentions, as compared with AR, for buying utilitarian products. In contrast, a multisensory environment (AR) results in a better user experience for purchasing a hedonic product. Moreover, multisensory technologies lead to higher visual appeal, emotional appeal, and purchase intentions. The research contributes to the literature on computer‐mediated interactions in a multisensory environment and proposes actionable recommendations to online marketers.
Developers always focus on delivering high-quality updates to improve, or maintain the rating of their apps. Prior work has studied user reviews by analyzing all reviews of an app. However, this ...app-level analysis misses the point that users post reviews to provide their feedback on a certain update. For example, two bad updates of an app with a history of good updates would not be spotted using app-level analysis. In this paper, we examine reviews at the update-level to better understand how users perceive bad updates. We focus our study on the top 250 bad updates (i.e., updates with the highest increase in the percentage of negative reviews relative to the prior updates of the app) from 26,726 updates of 2,526 top free-to-download apps in the Google Play Store. We find that feature removal and UI issues have the highest increase in the percentage of negative reviews. Bad updates with crashes and functional issues are the most likely to be fixed by a later update. However, developers often do not mention these fixes in the release notes. Our work demonstrates the necessity of an update-level analysis of reviews to capture the feelings of an app's user-base about a particular update.
Libraries and librarians are face many challenges remaining open and providing services during natural disasters and pandemics. Although remote access is now becoming commonplace, that doesn't ...guarantee that users will always remember that they have librarians and library resources still available to them. It is the job of librarians to promote and reinvent their services and resources to ensure patrons use their libraries when they need them most. It is through tool creation, learning programs, and new resource reviews, that libraries can keep their doors open even when they literally cannot.
Chronic disease represents a large and growing burden to the health care system worldwide. One method of managing this burden is the use of app-based interventions; however attrition, defined as lack ...of patient use of the intervention, is an issue for these interventions. While many apps have been developed, there is some evidence that they have significant issues with sustained use, with up to 98% of people only using the app for a short time before dropping out and/or dropping use down to the point where the app is no longer effective at helping to manage disease.
Our objectives are to systematically appraise and perform a meta-analysis on dropout rates in apps for chronic disease and to qualitatively synthesize possible reasons for these dropout rates that could be addressed in future interventions.
MEDLINE (Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online), PubMed, Cochrane CENTRAL (Central Register of Controlled Trials), and Embase were searched from 2003 to the present to look at mobile health (mHealth) and attrition or dropout. Studies, either randomized controlled trials (RCTs) or observational trials, looking at chronic disease with measures of dropout were included. Meta-analysis of attrition rates was conducted in Stata, version 15.1 (StataCorp LLC). Included studies were also qualitatively synthesized to examine reasons for dropout and avenues for future research.
Of 833 studies identified in the literature search, 17 were included in the review and meta-analysis. Out of 17 studies, 9 (53%) were RCTs and 8 (47%) were observational trials, with both types covering a range of chronic diseases. The pooled dropout rate was 43% (95% CI 29-57), with observational studies having a higher dropout rate (49%, 95% CI 27-70) than RCTs in more controlled scenarios, which only had a 40% dropout rate (95% CI 16-63). The studies were extremely varied, which is represented statistically in the high degree of heterogeneity (I
>99%). Qualitative synthesis revealed a range of reasons relating to attrition from app-based interventions, including social, demographic, and behavioral factors that could be addressed.
Dropout rates in mHealth interventions are high, but possible areas to minimize attrition exist. Reducing dropout rates will make these apps more effective for disease management in the long term.
International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) CRD42019128737; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?ID=CRD42019128737.
Mobile applications are becoming a preferred delivery method for the government sector and contributing to more convenient and timely services to citizens. This study examines the intention to use ...mobile applications for the government services (mG-App) in Oman. This study extended the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model by including two constructs namely trust and information quality. Data were collected from 513 mobile application users across Oman. The research model was analysed in two stages. First, structural equation modelling (SEM) was employed to determine significant determinants affecting users' acceptance of mG-App. In the second stage, a neural network model was used to validate SEM results and determine the relative importance of determinants of acceptance of mG-App. The findings revealed that trust and performance expectancy are the strongest determinants influencing the acceptance of mG-App. The findings of this research have provided theoretical contributions to the existing research on mG-App and practical implications to decision-makers involved in the development and implementation of mG-App in in Oman.
•This study examines individual willingness to use mobile applications for the government services (mG-App) in Oman.•The paper has extended UTAUT using two constructs – trust and information quality.•Data were gathered from 513 mobile application users across Oman.•The results were analysed using SEM and neural network approach.•The results revealed that trust and performance expectancy were the strongest determining acceptance of mG-App in Oman
Scientifically judging and comparing different mobile e-commerce retailing applications (apps) are essential to increase online shopping efficiency and enhance design for system improvement. In this ...research, the use of mobile apps in e-commerce retailing is viewed as an information operation process, and distance of information-state transition (DIT) theory is introduced to measure the “convenience” of mobile apps to obtain service information. Thus, a novel DIT-based evaluation method for the ease of use of mobile apps in e-commerce retailing from the perspective of consumer online shopping behaviour patterns is proposed. Three representative Chinese enterprises, namely, Tianmao Mall, Jingdong Mall and Suning Easy-to-buy, are chosen as study objects. Moreover, the corresponding ease-of-use indicators of three mobile apps under typical online shopping behaviour patterns are evaluated quantitatively. Results show that this research has important implications not only for online consumers but also for designers of online shopping systems.
•Developing a systematic procedure in evaluating the ease of use of mobile apps in e-commerce retailing.•Presenting a novel perspective of consumer online shopping patterns to judge and compare the “convenience” of mobile apps.•Introducing distance of information-state transition theory to measure the ease of use of mobile apps.•Establishing three mathematical models to evaluate the ease of use of mobile apps under three online shopping patterns.•Performing quantitative evaluation for the ease-of-use indicators of the mobile apps of three representative enterprises.
The use of mobile apps due to the Covid-19 pandemic for the distance learning process, learning media, entertainment, and payment instruments creates an awareness of how urgently cyber security is ...needed in special education. Students, teachers, parents, and therapists, in special education who has interests and have the responsibility data, must be kept confidential or protected as the authenticity of their work, as well as the diversity of levels of disability, trying to study in a systematic review through scientific journal searches related to contemporary mobile authentication methods, authenticity. The review was conducted through several scientific search engines and mobile apps. The results show that authentication is a challenging study for mobile app (computing) developers but it is not easy to facilitate the unique, diverse needs of disability, and the privacy of personal data is still not following cyber security standards while the need for mobile apps in the health and education sectors is growing rapidly.
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