Gamification elements in smoking cessation mobile apps and their effects on the self-efficacy and motivation to quit of smokers

Background and Aim: Gamification can positively impact self-efficacy and motivation to quit, two vital factors associated with smoking cessation. Since it shares key components with behaviour change theories and is easily applicable to digital interventions, gamification has the potential of improving the effectiveness of mHealth solutions. However, the role of gamification in the context of smoking cessation and mHealth has been sparsely investigated. My research aims to examine gamification elements in smoking cessation mobile apps and quantitatively investigate their effects on the self-efficacy and motivation to quit of smokers seeking to quit. Methods: A review of smoking cessation apps on the UK market assessed app adherence to treatment guidelines and incorporation of gamification. One of two mobile apps identified from the review were assigned to smokers seeking to quit for a 4-week long study. Linear and logistic regression models investigated the effects of gamification on self-efficacy, motivation to quit and smoking cessation. Pairwise Pearson correlations compared self-reported and in-app engagement data. Statistical significance for all models and tests was determined at the 5% (.05) level. Results: Smoking cessation apps had low adherence to treatment guidelines and did not incorporate a high level of gamification. Compared to baseline, self-efficacy and motivation to quit statistically significantly increased after app use. Perceived engagement with overall gamification was associated with change in self-efficacy (β=3.35, 95% CI: 0.31 to 6.40) and motivation to quit (β=0.54, 95% CI: 0.15 to 0.94). Engagement with the steps/levels feature (based on self-reported and in-app data) was associated with change in self-efficacy and 7-day smoking cessation. Self-reported and in-app engagement data were positively moderately correlated. Conclusion: Gamification in mobile apps can have positive effects on the self-efficacy and motivation to quit of smokers. The findings provide important insights for tobacco control policymakers, mobile app developers and smokers trying to quit.Open Acces

Making local knowledge matter: Supporting non-literate people to monitor poaching in Congo

This paper describes a project initiated by non-literate indigenous people to equip their own “citizen scientists” with rugged smartphones running adapted software that enable them to share some of their detailed environmental knowledge in ways that improve the sustainable management of their forest. Supporting local people to share their environmental knowledge in scientifically valid and strategically targeted ways can lead to improvement in environmental governance, environmental justice and management practices. Mbendjele hunter-gatherers in the rainforests of Congo are working together with the ExCiteS Research Group at University College London to make their local knowledge about commercial hunters’ activities improve the control of commercial hunters and diminish the harassment they often experience at the hands of “eco-guards” who enforce hunting regulations. Developing and deploying a system for non-literate users introduces a range of challenges that we have tried to solve. Our Anti-Poaching data collection platform, running on Android smartphones, is based on a decision tree of pictorial icons and employs various smartphone sensors to augment observations. We describe its development here

Development of Digital Diary for Enhanced Parental School Involvement in Tanzania

The study examined the use of digital diary as a tool for enhancing parental school involvement in Tanzania. The development of the digital diary followed eXtreme Programming agile method where 87 parents and 6 teachers from St. Florence school were involved. Parents and teachers were given six months to use the tool before testing for its effectiveness using data from 7 teachers and 156 parents through semi-structured interviews and questionnaires respectively. The study found that the majority of respondents (84.4% of parents and 96.7% of teachers) indicated that the digital diary was useful tool as enabled them to track children’s progress via their smartphones. Moreover, computer generated reports showed that messages to/from parents were delivered with approximately 90% success rate. This research argues for schools to adopt and use digital diaries for easy, engaging, and effective for better parental school involvement

Interest Convergence and the Role of Citizens as Defenders of Privacy

[extract] In February of 2016, the United States Government asked a federal court to order Apple, Inc. to create software that would enable the government to bypass a security feature on the cell phone of one of Syed Farook, one of the killers who went on a shooting rampage in San Bernardino, California, in December of 2015.Apple versus the United States government, including agencies, such as the FBI, the NSA, and the Attorney General, offers unlikely adversaries. Until Apple, Inc., began encrypting the software in its cell phones, government access to phone transmissions was relatively easy to obtain. But the adoption of “technological architectures that inhibit the government’s ability to obtain access to communications, even in circumstances that satisfy the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirements,” created this stand-off, and the Government’s particular fear of “going dark,” where the Government would have no information about communications, has exacerbated it. Perhaps more importantly, until several years ago, there were few incentives by private companies to stand on the side of privacy protection. Companies routinely acquired and aggregated user information. Companies like Google, Axiom, AT&T, Verizon, Facebook and others would come by user information naturally. That information was valuable. Until recently, there was no incentive to protect or maximize privacy. Now, private companies have an incentive to protect privacy. Whether the incentive is pecuniary, with privacy now a brand, or moral or political, many of the larger companies are aligning with Apple in its fight against the government. This paper suggests the alignment may be explained in large part to interest convergence. The late Professor Derrick Bell advanced this theory as an explanation for societal change in segregation after WWII, helping to explain Brown v. Board of Education as a shift favoring the majority Whites as well as the minority African-Americans. This paper further argues that interest convergence can be utilized to promote privacy for the average citizen, while still allowing the government to fight crime effectively. The means creating settled expectations about how companies will assist governments in crime interdiction, labeling – like food ingredients – what companies do with the information they receive and how they approach personal privacy. Interest convergence will lead to gradations and distinctive types of privacy. Gradations can include limited disclosures of information, and archetypes can include informational, locational and structural privacy. Above all, because the advancing technologies will keep advancing, the government will have to work with companies or by itself to adapt or new technological architectures. Citizens will rely more and more on education and favorable alignments with companies. Reliance on the Fourth Amendment, unless the ‘third-party rule’ is significantly adapted to the 21st century, will continue to offer little support.

Big Data, Small Credit: The Digital Revolution and Its Impact on Emerging Market Consumers

This research report sheds light on a new cadre of technology companies who are disrupting the credit scoring business in emerging markets. Using non-financial data -- such as social media activity and mobile phone usage patterns -- complex algorithms and big data analytics are forever changing the economics of how we identify, score, and underwrite credit to consumers who have been invisible to lenders until now