This study aims to examine the factors influencing the intention to accept smartwatch through the extended technology acceptance model (TAM), which incorporates consumer-oriented external factors that correspond to the unique characteristics of the smartwatch: social image, perceived enjoyment, and health information orientation. Online survey data of 1,500 Koreans were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results show the intention to use smartwatch is influenced by social image and perceived enjoyment through the mediation effect of TAM. In addition, health information motivation is found to affect the intention to use a smartwatch. This paper suggests that practitioners in the smartwatch industry emphasize healthcare functions of the devices and promote its compatibility with mobile health applications. The noteworthy finding is to verify how the healthcare functions of smartwatch have a significant impact on the acceptance. This study is contributed to understanding the social motivation and health-related function affecting the acceptance of smartwatch. 

Violence against women/girls (VAWG) causes severe harm to victims and societies. Early interventions among youth are crucial. BREAKAWAY is an online, narrative-based, role-playing soccer game purposefully designed to educate youth worldwide about VAWG. It is the first to adapt the Sabido methodology of entertainment-education in games for social change. In 2013, BREAKAWAY youth camps were held in El Salvador, a Central American country among the highest per capita rates of femicide in the world. Event-based time diary, participatory sketching, gamification strategies, and Facebook Insights were used for assessment. We found it effective to use role modeling and narrative engagement of the Sabido methodology in game design. Overall, the game and camp experience had a profound impact on the participants. They gained knowledge and skills about VAWG. They also reported positive attitude and initiation of behavior change toward gender equality. They demonstrated that experiential gameplay coupled with facilitated group discussions could be helpful in addressing complex social issues. Our quantitative analysis suggested potential empowerment for girls and openness to change for boys. The BREAKAWAY Facebook page also had a surge of traffic and user interactions during and after the camps. 

To understand what motivates smokers to seek out smoking cessation information, this study expands upon previous research on information processing and seeking by utilizing the self-determination theory. To examine the relationships proposed, a web-based survey was conducted. The results show that risk perception increased autonomous motivation as well as controlled motivation. Autonomous motivation increased systematic processing, while controlled motivation increased heuristic processing. Both autonomous and controlled motivations increased information seeking. Finally, while systematic processing and information seeking about smoking cessation were positively related, heuristic processing had no significant relationship with acquisition of information concerning smoking cessation. Implications for future research are discussed. 

Though researchers have investigated how video games impact players’ subsequent cognition and behavior, fewer studies have explored how enacting physical gestures when playing motion-controlled games leads to downstream impact. Participants who played while performing power poses showed greater risk-taking tendency compared with those who kept powerless poses. However, both power and powerless conditions showed reduced signature sizes compared with baseline signature. The findings highlight the role of game mechanics in affecting ensuing behavior and provide evidence that physical gestures involved in playing video games can impact offline risk behaviors. 

This study investigated how 191 women use period-tracking mobile applications. Findings revealed that approximately half of our respondents use some form of period-tracking mobile application. Women who use period-tracking mobile applications report using them to track and predict their menstrual cycle, keep track of menstrual symptoms, and use the information for easier and more accurate communication with their healthcare provider. In addition, women report using period-tracking mobile applications to track fertility as a means of pregnancy prevention. Women who did not use period-tracking mobile applications frequently reported that they did not feel a need to use them because their hormonal birth control predicted and regulated their period for them, and thus there was no need for a mobile application to do it. Lastly, several participants identified not using period-tracking mobile applications because they did not trust them. Reinforcing and extending previous literature, the present study highlights a tension concerning self-monitoring and self-care (Lupton, 2014), usefulness (Moglia et al., 2016), and opportunity for autonomy. 

In the context of 2014 U.S. Ebola virus outbreak, this paper conducted two studies to investigate whether neuroticism, one dimension of the Big Five personality traits, is associated with health information seeking behavior. Study 1 examined the relationship between neuroticism and use of diverse mediated channels to seek information on the Ebola virus. Study 2 used Google Trends Service to show that the strength of the association between neuroticism and Internet search activity was dependent upon levels of media attention to the Ebola virus. These findings contribute to a better understanding of personality-based predictors of health information seeking behavior in the face of a global public health crisis. 

In the context of 2014 U.S. Ebola virus outbreak, this paper conducted two studies to investigate whether neuroticism, one dimension of the Big Five personality traits, is associated with health information seeking behavior. Study 1 examined the relationship between neuroticism and use of diverse mediated channels to seek information on the Ebola virus. Study 2 used Google Trends Service to show that the strength of the association between neuroticism and Internet search activity was dependent upon levels of media attention to the Ebola virus. These findings contribute to a better understanding of personality-based predictors of health information seeking behavior in the face of a global public health crisis. 

Regardless of the gap in the number of countries with low versus high obesity rates, a similar degree of negative perceptions about obesity and obese individuals is pervasive throughout the world. Despite the inevitable negative social conception of obesity and obese individuals regardless of their country origins, little research has explored (a) the likelihood that newspapers contributed to the obesity stigmatization in societies and (b) how different, if at all, newspapers in those countries depicted obesity and obese individuals in news stories. Undergirded by the attribution theory and the model of stigma communication, a content analysis of two leading newspapers—one in the United States and one in South Korea—found that the American newspaper produced more stories with obesity stigmas than the Korean newspaper. Unlike the assumption of the attribution theory, news stories with an obesity stigma included not only personal, but also social levels of attributions of obesity in both countries’ newspapers. However, health expert sources might cancel out the potential harms of situating obesity-related stigmas in news stories in both newspapers. Implications of stigma communication are discussed to understand the possibility of biased, unhealthy news production. 

Based on the Extended Parallel Process Model, the authors explored the effects of a fear appeal message on people’s fear arousal, attitude and intention regarding calling while driving. Participants (N=200) were randomly assigned to either treatment group or control group. Treatment group were exposed to a full appeal message with both threat and efficacy components, whereas control group were exposed to the same message but without the efficacy component. All participants then completed a questionnaire measuring threat perceptions, fear arousal, attitude, and behavioral intention. Participants in treatment group also reported efficacy perceptions, subjective social norm, and perceived behavioral control. The treatment group reported higher level of advocated attitude and intention regarding calling while driving compared with the control group. It was also found that subjective social norm moderated the effects of perceived susceptibility on attitude. Efficacy beliefs led to future behavioral intention, mediated by perceived behavioral control. Implications for message design are discussed. 

This manuscript analyzes films and television (TV) portraying (in)fertility, diagnosis, treatment and outcomes. A qualitative thematic analysis revealed that television series and films narratively resolve (in)fertility utilizing myths. Findings indicate that all TV shows and films in our study presented at least one derivation of an (in)fertility myth. We identified this overarching infertility myth as “the faulted female body” (FFB), with three derivations: structural failure (e.g., t-shaped uterus), mental failure (e.g., “overthinking” about conception) and hyperfertility (as a racist construct). The utility of FFB in allowing restitution of story arcs is not reflective of off-screen experiences for viewers dealing with (in)fertility issues. The manuscript unpacks the FFB myth with Silverman’s (2015) method of consciousness raising (CR) to correct popular media representations of embodied reproductive myths.