Sometimes the things that are supposed to help make our lives easier to manage end up doing the opposite, and for a lot of folks, that’s happening with health apps. New research shows that the average person uses six different health-related digital tools on a regular basis and 22% have more than 10. So, it’s not that surprising that nearly half of Americans are feeling overwhelmed by dealing with all those health apps.
According to a survey of 2-thousand adults between 18 and 65, they spend more than an hour a week, on average, manually logging their data and checking their health apps at least once a day.
- That leaves 79% feeling like their phone knows their health better than they themselves do.
- The most common health apps people use include daily activity trackers (57%), nutrition apps (39%), and sleep tracking tools (37%).
- Others use apps for ongoing health care needs, like weight management support (34%) and virtual care to connect with doctors (30%).
- About a quarter (23%) use apps to manage a specific chronic health condition, while 14% use these health tools to try popular health trends they’ve seen online.
- Over half of those polled (53%) feel like they have too many health apps to keep track of and 45% admit they feel “burnt out” on a weekly basis just from trying to put info into their apps.
- Another 15% say they’re exhausted from trying to keep up with all the alerts.
- People stopped using or deleted apps that required a subscription (27%), or showed too many ads or tried to push products (23%).
- A quarter of respondents say they’ve forgotten to follow through on a health goal or appointment because they were managing too many apps.
- But some feel all the effort it takes to maintain the digital health tools is worth it, including 91% who say the apps have helped them better understand how their body works. Others credit health apps with inspiring them to feel motivated (38%), in control (36%) and confident about their decision (33%).
- If they created the “perfect health app,” it would include a sleep tracker (37%), activity tracker (31%), heart rate monitor (31%), step counter (30%), blood pressure monitor (30%) and stress tracker (30%).
Source: Talker
Scott's Thoughts:
- Who has the time and energy to keep up with six health apps or more?!
- Honestly one of the reasons I try to only use Carilion is because I only have to use one app!
- Keep it simple, please!