Apathy is the Biggest Mobile Health Blocker

There are a lot of things that people like to talk about for what’s holding back mobile health. They talk about the industry being very new, which is relatively true. They talk about the swarm of mobile health applications which provides consumers with the paradox of choice. Others point to some of the challenging regulations that cause problems for the adoption of mHealth. No doubt some laws make mobile health miserable (see Telemedicine laws across state lines). There are certainly many more reasons people offer. However, the biggest blocker to consumer adoption of mobile health technologies is Apathy.

Ever consumer health application is working against one of the strongest forces in the world. People just flat out don’t care. Yes, we all care about our health generally, but that’s very different than caring about your health enough to change your behavior. Yes, every mobile health app out there requires you to change your behavior. Even if it’s a touch or swipe of the screen, it’s still a change in behavior. Even if it’s carrying around a tracking device, it’s a change in behavior. The reality is that people don’t change their behavior when they’re apathetic about something.

I’ve always said that chronic patients are great for mobile health solutions. The reason why they’re great is that their chronic condition makes them start to care about their health. The same is true as we age. As we get older our days are numbered and we start to care much more about our health as we try to extend our life on this earth.

The problem is that both of these groups are very small. The majority of the population feels relatively healthy and so they don’t care about their health. Yes, I know there are exceptions, but they prove the rule. Watch someone who deeply cares about their health and you can see why the rest of the world doesn’t. It’s a lot of work to do all those things that keep you healthy.

Don’t get me wrong. I think there’s a ton of promise with mobile health technologies. In fact, it might be the only way that we are able to get people to care about their health. So far we haven’t been very successful. However, I have hope that the next generation of technologies will be able to change how we feel about health. In fact, it will happen in a way that most people won’t realize that what they’re doing is actually improving their health. That’s when mobile health technologies will finally reach their full potential.