How Mobile Applications can Help Create Healthy Habits

The first mobile phone was launched only 46 years ago, and since then it has evolved, grown and has become an integral part of our daily lives. Now, 81% of American adults have a smartphone and spend approximately 86 hours per month on their device. Smartphones have become the best comprehensive source for everything from entertainment, social connectivity, news and shopping. Cell phones have become entrenched in society as a necessity both for our work and for our personal lives.

Technology advances rapidly by launching multiple technological devices, such as tablets, new smartphones, larger televisions and faster computers. With all these technological advances, it can be easy to get lost in these digital screens and ignore our need for physical activity. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), physical inactivity is the fourth leading risk factor for global mortality and is responsible for causing approximately 3.2 million deaths. About 60 to 80% of the world’s population does not participate in sufficient physical activity. The majority of the American population owns a cell phone and uses it daily, however, they do not find time to participate in physical activities because the technological devices are time consuming.

The hours can pass, and in the blink of an eye, the day has gone and there was no time for physical activities. People have become incredibly sedentary by spending an average of 12 hours sitting per day, and the use of computers and handheld devices only encourages this. Would not it be nice to have a reminder to help you develop and maintain these healthy habits? Technology has great power to help develop healthy habits and goals if used to improve.

Gamification is the use of game design elements and mechanics to help people achieve their goals. Through gamification, several organizations are promoting a fun learning culture to train new employees, facilitate recruitment, teach new languages ​​and grow e-learning. The global market for gamification is growing rapidly and is expected to reach $ 22 million in 2022.

Fourdesire, an innovative mobile design studio, provides an infusion of fun in your everyday tasks, encouraging you to achieve and maintain your healthy habits through mobile gamification. Fourdesire offers several mobile gamification apps to help ease the pressure to create healthy habits and benefit your overall well-being. It is easy to see the maintenance of healthy habits as a boring and exhausting task, but gamification applications can change that perspective.

The Fourdesire Walkr App is a mobile game that requires videogame players to perform real-world physical exercises in order to play. There are already pedometers and fitness devices that help you track steps or miles, but do not motivate new users who try to acquire the habit of walking. The Walkr application wraps you in a colorful game of building galaxies, which encourages physical activity to advance more in the game. Each step leads players to obtain energy to power their spacecraft, fly and explore more than 25 different and unique planets with their own alien ecosystems and life forms. Walkr is a galaxy adventure in your pocket that helps you stay physically active and have fun while you do it.

Another essential healthy habit to maintain is drinking enough water throughout the day. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention UU., 43% of adults drink less than four cups of water per day, and eight glasses of water per day are recommended.

Plant Nanny is another mobile application provided by Fourdesire that encourages users to drink more water by growing several plants in the process. If users drink enough water and follow their consumption, their virtual plant will grow. The lack of water intake will cause the virtual plant to dehydrate and then “die”, which will cause users to have to start over. The application provides a record of the water consumption history, which allows users to have an overview of their water consumption habits at a glance. By caring for a virtual plant, you are also taking care of your body and cultivating healthier habits.

Technology continues to advance and is always present in our daily lives. The impact of technology can be negative if it decreases general well-being and promotes a sedentary lifestyle. If technology is used as a key partner to help improve human life, the result will only be increasingly positive. Gamification mobile applications are a way to use technology to generate positive changes in our lives, but they will only work if we are given the opportunity.