Research On The Usage Behavior Of Fitness APP User From A Health Goals Perspective

China and other countries are paying increasing attention to citizens' health.However,because the current situation in China is far from ideal,all citizens should focus on changing their behaviour to improve their health.With the development of mobile technology in the online arena,mobile applications are blooming in the market.Because fitness apps can provide useful functions and services to improve health and fitness,many people take them as a good method to take exercise.However,there are fewer users of fitness apps than of other mobile applications(e.g.,mobile instant messaging and mobile payment),and many users do not integrate mobile fitness into their everyday life.This does not help users to engage in mobile fitness anytime and anywhere and also limits the development of fitness app enterprises.Therefore the aim of this study is to focus on the usage behavior of fitness apps in the mobile Internet context to improve the user's health and to promote fitness app providers' sustainability.In the literature,little attention has been paid to the different uses of fitness apps at the different stages with a view to explaining and predicting the behaviour of their users.Thus the aim here is to address this gap by investigating the influential mechanisms of these apps,including the exploratory and continuance use,as well as the mechanisms of different behaviors at the continuance use stage to provide insights into the behavior of users.This study will conduct three empirical research based on goal-setting theory,status quo bias theory,self-determination theory,and environmental behavior relationship theory from the perspective of health goals.First,this study will focus on the exploratory behaviour of fitness apps to investigate how inertia influences the intention to explore these apps based on status quo bias theory,while investigating the moderating effect of health goals in the exploratory behaviour based on goal-setting theory.In this study,perceived need will be introduced as a mediator to explore how inertia influences perceived need and,in turn,how perceived need influences the intention to explore the apps.The results show that inertia negatively affects both the intention to explore the apps and the perceived need,and in turn,perceived need decreases the intention to explore the apps.The results also indicate that health goals moderate the relationship between inertia and perceived need,as well as the relationship between inertia and the intention to explore the apps,revealing that health goals can adjust the effect of the status quo bias on users' behaviour or cognition during mobile fitness.Second,this study will focus on user behaviour of continuance use of fitness apps to explore how health goals influence the continuance use based on goal-setting theory,while exploring the moderating effect of intrinsic motivation in the continuance use behaviour based on self-determination theory.This study will introduce perceived usefulness and habit as mediators to form three mediating paths.The results show that health goals influence continuance use through three means(conscious,unconscious,and conscious-unconscious transferring means)to achieve them and that both the conscious self-regulation and unconscious habit can significantly influence continuance use.The results also verify that intrinsic motivation moderates the relationship between perceived usefulness and continuance use,revealing the moderating role of intrinsic motivation in mobile fitness.Finally,this study will focus on routine use and innovation of fitness apps at the continuance use stage to identify that there are two behaviours—routine use and innovation use—at the continuance use stage.This study investigates the mechanism of health goals and e-health literacy on these behaviours based on goal-setting theory,while exploring the moderating effect of fitness mobility based on environmental behavior relationship theory.The results show that health goals and e-health literacy significantly influence these two uses and that the influence of e-health literacy on innovation use is more significant than on health goals.The results also verify that fitness mobility negatively moderates the relationship between health goals and routine use and positively moderates the relationship between health goals and innovation use,revealing the boundary condition of mobile fitness during the continuance use of these apps.The goal of this study is to explore the behaviour of fitness app users at the different use stages.From the theoretical perspective,this study contributes to the literature on mobile applications by providing new research perspectives and findings.This study enriches the related research,including health goals,inertia,intrinsic motivation,and mobility,in the mobile Internet context.From the practical perspective,this study provides suggestions for the fitness app businesses based on its three empirical investigations of the apps.These firms should develop suitable strategies according to user behaviour characteristics at the different use stages to promote their long-term development.