Digital Technology Adoption: An Experiment on the Use of a Mobile Health Application

Background: Mindfulness describes the practice of purposely bringing one’s attention to the present moment, a concept that can be developed through exercises and has been shown to help reduce stress. Mobile apps are a promising way to make mindfulness exercises available to individuals. However, what remains to be explored is how individuals can be motivated to use such apps. So, in the present study, I examine different motivational approaches to facilitate adopting and using a mindfulness app. Methods: For this purpose, 73 subjects (M = 20.47, SD = 2.29, 53% female) completed two questionnaires at an interval of two months as part of a pre-intervention-post-intervention control group design. Between the two data collection dates, the three intervention groups (n = 59) used the mindfulness app, while the control group (n = 14) did not. At the outset of this intervention phase, intervention groups were exposed to different motivational approaches to facilitate app use. Results: Based on the evaluation of user data and the statistical tests conducted, the motivational techniques did not lead to the expected changes in the different orientations of motivation for the intervention groups. Also, the stress levels of the intervention groups did not decline from pre-intervention to post-intervention. Conclusion: In the way realized in this study, the explored motivational approaches did not have the influence proposed by prior research. Hence, further studies are required to assess how to best facilitate technology adoption and use of mindfulness apps to exploit their benefits entirely.