The possibility of reminders from mobile health and fitness applications to impose stress on their users

Mobile health / fitness applications employ different methods to motivate their users and to give them feedback, one of them is sending reminders to do or avoid certain things. The user receives that reminder and can act accordingly. The study was conducted with an online questionnaire that participants had to fill in. It was proposed that the frequency and phrasing of the reminder would contribute to perceived stress, as well as the users’ motivation to work with the application and to exercise. Additionally, it was assumed that behavioral change might occur in participants, which could also contribute to perceived stress. It was found that reminders overall can induce stress, if the participants feel pressured to comply with the reminder. However, frequency had no significant correlation effect on perceived stress. Phrasing had a significant effect on stress felt by the users. Motivation was found to not have a positive effect on perceived stress. The behavioral change might have an effect on perceived stress, but the data was mixed, so no concrete result could be found. From this it could be said that health / fitness applications can induce stress, but it could not be confirmed that all factors stressed the users.