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Lifestyle Applications Dimensions Priorities and Features – The Social, Mental and Dynamic Requirements

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Transfer, Diffusion and Adoption of Next-Generation Digital Technologies (TDIT 2023)

Part of the book series: IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology ((IFIPAICT,volume 699))

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Abstract

Obesity and diabetes are more common than ever. In particular, young adults aged 18–25 are becoming more susceptible to obesity through the abundance of fast food, the popularity of online gaming and other factors. This combination often leads to unhealthy lifestyles. For treatment or prevention of these unhealthy behaviors, lifestyle apps have shown to have big potential. Current lifestyle apps mainly focus on monitoring activity and eating patterns but keep a rather passive stance when it comes to changing users’ behavior. Gamification could help greatly to actively change users’ behavior and thus, encouraging healthy lifestyles. Some current lifestyle apps use gamification methods such as goals or sometimes even achievements to some extent. This motivates the user to change certain behaviors such as walking 5000 steps a day. Gamification has proven to be advantageous for changing user behavior, but gamification is broad and there is little to no research done on what sort of gamification works best. This research aims to fill that gap by researching the suitability of different gamification methods in lifestyle applications for users between 18–25. The research is done alongside plans for a lifestyle application against obesity and diabetes so the gamification methods will be evaluated according to these plans. Main requirements are fivefold: lifestyle apps have to be fun and personalized; the social and mental health side of lifestyle apps are not well represented; lifestyle apps are too static; and last but not least all interviewees state that that they have to be easy to use.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

    Ton Spil & Jochem Groen

  2. University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    David Sundaram

Authors
  1. Ton Spil
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  2. David Sundaram
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  3. Jochem Groen
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Correspondence to Ton Spil .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. IIM Nagpur, Nagpur, India

    Sujeet K. Sharma

  2. Swansea University, Swansea, UK

    Yogesh K. Dwivedi

  3. IIM Nagpur, Nagpur, India

    Bhimaraya Metri

  4. University of Bradford, Bradford, UK

    Banita Lal

  5. Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, UK

    Amany Elbanna

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Spil, T., Sundaram, D., Groen, J. (2024). Lifestyle Applications Dimensions Priorities and Features – The Social, Mental and Dynamic Requirements. In: Sharma, S.K., Dwivedi, Y.K., Metri, B., Lal, B., Elbanna, A. (eds) Transfer, Diffusion and Adoption of Next-Generation Digital Technologies. TDIT 2023. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 699. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-50204-0_36

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-50204-0_36

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-50203-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-50204-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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