Adolescents' Assessment of Several Step Tracker Mobile Applications Based on Their Previous Level of Physical Activity.

Adolescents' use of step tracker mobile applications (apps) could be influenced by their assessment of the mobile app used. To analyze differences in the dropout rate, app assessment, and problematic mobile phone use based on prior physical activity levels and the app used. A study with a quasi-experimental design was carried out with the participation of 240 adolescents, who were further categorized as either active or inactive. The adolescents carried out a 10-week intervention promoted as a part of the physical education curriculum, three days a week, in which they randomly used the Pokémon Go, MapMyWalk, Pacer, or Strava mobile apps after school for cardiorespiratory training. The results showed a higher dropout rate from Pokémon Go in the group of inactive adolescents ( = 0.012). No differences were found in the assessment of apps based on the level of activity of the adolescents, neither overall nor when analyzing this question based on the app used ( > 0.05). As for problematic mobile phone use, only previously inactive adolescents assigned to the Pacer group significantly increased their final score after the intervention ( = 0.044), with no changes being identified in the other groups or apps ( > 0.05). Furthermore, the active adolescents showed a positive relationship between the volume of training and problematic mobile phone use ( = 0.023), specifically with the conflicting use of this device ( = 0.017). The inactive adolescents had a higher dropout rate when using Pokémon Go. There were no differences in app assessment between the active and the inactive participants. However, the active adolescents showed a link between their training volume and problematic mobile phone use.