Promoting physical activities: The effe...

Literature shows mixed evidence about mobile phone applications’ power to foster physical activities. A systematic integration is missing that offers insights on which mobile phone application techniques can or cannot foster physical activities. There is also a lack of theoretical integration of current research. In this project, we perform a systematic review guided by a theoretical framework focusing on effects that certain mobile phone application techniques have on physical activities, to improve our understanding of what techniques are more or less effective. We identified articles by searching EBSCO Business Source Complete, Science Direct, PsycINFO, Springer, Plos ONE, Taylor and Francis, IEEE, Social Science Citation Index, PUBMED, MEDLINE, and Google Scholar. The literature search resulted in 41 usable studies. Meta-synthesis and vote-counting were applied to analyze these.

Several mobile phone application techniques were identified that have potential to foster physical activities, while others were identified that are unlikely to increase physical activities. More theoretical development and more quantitative studies were identified as major avenues for future research, among others.