Mobile Application Engagement and Consumer Behavior
Summary
Mobile applications have become central to modern commerce, blending technological innovation with evolving patterns of consumer interaction. Engagement with an app encompasses cognitive, emotional and behavioural dimensions, each of which drives outcomes such as download rates, continuance intention, loyalty and advocacy. Research has shown that perceived usefulness and ease of use, inherited from technology acceptance frameworks, remain fundamental predictors of adoption and ongoing use. At the same time, hedonic aspects—enjoyment, aesthetic appeal and reward—contribute significantly to long-term engagement, particularly in recreational or social contexts. Beyond individual perceptions, social factors such as networking opportunities, peer influence and brand trust shape consumer attitudes and foster community building around an app. In specialised domains such as mobile health and travel, tailored functionalities and user-centric design have been shown to reduce dropout rates and bolster sustained commitment. Globally, firms leverage insights from consumer behaviour studies to optimise user interfaces, deploy gamification strategies and personalise notifications, with the ultimate aim of enhancing retention and driving revenue.
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Mobile Application Engagement and Consumer Behavior publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in mobile application engagement and consumer behavior across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Perceived usefulness: The degree to which a user believes that using an app improves task performance.
Perceived ease of use: The extent to which an app is judged free of effort.
Perceived enjoyment: The intrinsic pleasure derived from app use, independent of functional outcomes.
User engagement: A multidimensional construct encompassing cognitive attention, emotional investment and behavioural interaction with an app.
Continuance intention: The likelihood that a user will continue to use an app over time.
Stimulus-Organism-Response model: A theoretical framework positing that external features (stimuli) affect internal user states (organism), which in turn drive behavioural outcomes (response).
References
- The role of utilitarian and hedonic aspects in the continuance intention to use social mobile apps. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services (2022).
- Building user engagement to mhealth apps from a learning perspective: Relationships among functional, emotional and social drivers of user value. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services (2022).
- Examining the antecedents and consequences of mobile travel app engagement. PLOS ONE (2021).
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