Promoting engagement with a mental health smartphone app: evidence from a randomized field experiment

Using a randomized field experiment, we provide evidence on how university students respond to interventions designed to encourage downloading and engaging with a mental health smartphone application (hereafter referred to as “app”). Our intervention targeted all students, both mentally healthy and unwell, and our sample was broadly representative ( n = 1,812; women = 60%, men = 30%, non-binary/undisclosed = 10%). Paying students a small amount to download and engage with the app increased downloads by 7 percentage points, from a baseline take-up rate of 14%. Payments also increased the number of activities completed, but engagement across all groups remained extremely low. Inviting students to an exclusive social media group moderated by student ambassadors had no effect on take-up or engagement, although this may be due to the relatively low number of students who joined the group. Overall, our results suggest that university students are resistant to using this mental health app and respond weakly to these incentives, despite the high prevalence of mental health issues in this population. We supplement our quantitative analysis with information from open-text survey questions and interviews to provide some insights into this reluctance. Perceived lack of need, time constraints, and skepticism about the app's benefits emerge as potential barriers to app engagement.