Mobile multimedia health applications and their potential impact on the human population

Mobile applications have become prevalent in every facet of human life from communication through social media and email to entertainment by watching videos and playing games. It is without a doubt that the majority of people, especially those from the Western world, have access to a smartphone. The aforementioned statement is supported by statistics from the Pew Research Center which indicated that in the year 2018, a whopping 95% of Americans possessed a cellphone and 77% of Americans owned a smartphone [1]. In regard to just smartphone statistics, the percentage of users has more than doubled in the last five years [1]. In this paper we have conducted a survey that included 10 questions and involved 91 survey participants where 85.4% own a smartphone. More than half, 56.7%, of the survey participants responded that they have previously used or are using a health application and 57.8% own a wearable device that possesses health related functionality. The survey revealed uncertainties concerning health related applications and wearable technology revealed. Based on these results, the paper provides suggestions for the mobile health applications to reach their full, wide-spread potential and be able to positively impact the well-being of the entirety of the human population.