IJERPH, Vol. 16, Pages 2612: Addictive Features of Social Media/Messenger Platforms and Freemium Games against the Background of Psychological and Economic Theories

IJERPH, Vol. 16, Pages 2612: Addictive Features of Social Media/Messenger Platforms and Freemium Games against the Background of Psychological and Economic Theories International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health doi: 10.3390/ijerph16142612 Authors: Christian Montag Bernd Lachmann Marc Herrlich Katharina Zweig Currently about 2.71 billion humans use a smartphone worldwide. Although smartphone technology has brought many advances, a growing number of scientists discuss potential detrimental effects due to excessive smartphone use. Of importance, the likely culprit to understand over-usage is not the smartphone itself, but the excessive use of applications installed on smartphones. As the current business model of many app-developers foresees an exchange of personal data for allowance to use an app, it is not surprising that many design elements can be found in social media apps and Freemium games prolonging app usage. It is the aim of the present work to analyze several prominent smartphone apps to carve out such elements. As a result of the analysis, a total of six different mechanisms are highlighted to illustrate the prevailing business model in smartphone app development. First, these app-elements are described and second linked to classic psychological/economic theories such as the mere-exposure effect, endowment effect, and Zeigarnik effect, but also to psychological mechanisms triggering social comparison. It is concluded that many of the...
Source: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health - Category: Environmental Health Authors: Tags: Review Source Type: research