Interactive health technology is becoming a great new way to track your own health and also have access to your doctor. Chronic diseases are increasing and by being able to stay in contact with your doctor and have your health information given to your doctor through smartphone apps and wearables. The study Using Smartphones and Health Apps to Change and Manage Health Behaviors: A Population-Based Survey by Ernsting, et al., explains how people with smartphones are more likely to do health research and care more about their overall wellness than those who did not use health apps. People that used health apps were more conscious of their health habits. Another article that stood out to me was 4 Innovative Ways to Use Social Media for Wellness Engagement which discussed how social media, messaging, gaming, and hashtags are used in promoting health. Some brands like Nike and Lululemon have used social media to promote products and engage customers. Others use messaging to put out news stories that may interest their customers. Gaming combined with social media is another great aspect of interactive health technology because people can get active with their games and track their fitness activities and progress. The last aspect was hashtags which are very important in promoting health and passing along challenges like the Ice Bucket Challenge to promote ALS research and raise money.
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