School of Management, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
Faculty of Education, Monash University, Melbourne 3800, Australia.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 Oct 20;17(20):7639. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17207639.
With the popularity of the health and wellness trend in recent years, smartphone fitness applications have become more and more popular. Thus, this study explored factors affecting the behavioral intention to use and the actual usage behavior of smartphone fitness apps from technical, health, and social perspectives by integrating the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). We examined whether perceived usefulness, perceived ease-of-use, social influence, self-efficacy, goal-setting, and self-monitoring predict usage behavior. Based on the survey responses of 1066 smartphone fitness apps users, we revealed that all of the variables, except for self-monitoring, significantly influence usage behavior, while behavioral intention acts as a total mediator between perceived usefulness, perceived ease-of-use and usage behavior. Drawing on the research findings, we suggest that influencing behavioral intention to use a fitness app can be an effective method to increase its adoption. Therefore, app developers need to pay attention to interventions that seek to enhance the usefulness of the app, provide professional counseling, as well as an opportunity for effortless goal setting features.
近年来，随着健康和养生潮流的兴起，智能手机健身应用越来越受欢迎。因此，本研究从技术、健康和社会角度出发，通过整合社会认知理论（SCT）和技术接受和使用统一理论（UTAUT），探讨了影响智能手机健身应用使用意愿和实际使用行为的因素。我们考察了感知有用性、感知易用性、社会影响、自我效能、目标设定和自我监控是否可以预测使用行为。基于对 1066 名智能手机健身应用用户的调查回复，我们发现除了自我监控外，所有变量都显著影响使用行为，而行为意图则在感知有用性、感知易用性和使用行为之间充当完全中介。根据研究结果，我们建议影响使用健身应用的意愿可以是增加其采用的有效方法。因此，应用程序开发者需要关注旨在增强应用程序有用性、提供专业咨询以及设定轻松目标特征的干预措施。
