The program, run as a community-based public health promotion effort, offered participants wearable activity trackers linked to a mobile app that supported step monitoring, personal goal setting, and a points system redeemable for health-related products. The researchers purposively recruited participants across different levels of engagement, deliberately seeking out both enthusiastic users and those who had drifted away, in order to capture the full range of experiences with the technology. Fifty participants took part in the focus groups, with a mean age of 40.1 years and 44 percent men.

The research team stratified the analysis into two age bands, 19 to 39 years and 40 to 64 years, and analyzed the transcripts inductively, allowing themes to emerge from the data rather than testing predetermined categories. Credibility was reinforced through double coding of the material, peer debriefing among the researchers, and triangulation across data sources. The age-stratified results point to fundamentally different motivational engines in the two groups. Younger adults framed their engagement around appearance, fitness, and the appeal of exploring new technology, treating the wearable partly as a gadget and partly as a fitness tool. Middle-aged adults, by contrast, emphasized health maintenance and practical rewards, treating the device as a means of sustaining long-term wellbeing and extracting tangible value from the points they accumulated through daily activity.

Across both age groups, the researchers identified a common set of facilitators that kept people engaged. Ease of use mattered, as did real-time feedback, the immediate visibility of steps and progress that the tracker and app provided. Trust in the public program itself also emerged as a facilitator, suggesting that the government sponsorship of the initiative lent credibility to the technology. The barriers were equally concrete. Participants reported technical issues that disrupted their tracking, limited personalization in the feedback and goals the app offered, and administrative inconvenience in dealing with the program. These friction points, rather than any loss of interest in health itself, appear in the accounts as the forces that eroded sustained engagement with the devices.

When asked what would improve the program, participants converged on three recommendations: more personalized feedback tailored to individual patterns, automatic data synchronization to eliminate manual steps and technical glitches, and broader usability of the reward points so that the incentives would feel more valuable and flexible. Each recommendation maps directly onto a barrier identified in the analysis, linking the technical shortcomings to concrete design changes. The study’s authors conclude that enhancing technical reliability, personalization, and age-sensitive design is essential for sustaining engagement and maximizing the public health impact of such initiatives. The age-sensitive element is the distinctive contribution of this work: because younger and middle-aged adults cited different motivations, a one-size-fits-all interface and reward structure may serve neither group optimally. A program that highlights fitness and novelty for younger users while emphasizing health maintenance and practical rewards for middle-aged participants would align the design with the motivations each group actually reports. As governments expand wearable-based health promotion programs to address chronic disease, which remain major public health concerns worldwide, the Seoul findings indicate that the factors influencing sustained engagement are not uniform across the population a program serves, and that understanding them by age group is a prerequisite for keeping citizens wearing the devices long after the initial novelty fades.

Subject of Research: Age-related differences in motivations, barriers, and facilitators of wearable and mobile app use in a government-led digital health initiative in Seoul, Republic of Korea

Article Title: Age differences in motivations, barriers, and facilitators of wearable and mobile app use in a government-led digital health initiative: a qualitative study

Article References: Yoon, J., Lee, M., Kim, S. J., Han, J., Joo, J., Cho, H., & Cho, J. (2026). Age differences in motivations, barriers, and facilitators of wearable and mobile app use in a government-led digital health initiative: a qualitative study. BMC Public Health. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-026-29596-z

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12889-026-29596-z

Keywords: wearable activity trackers, digital health, mobile health apps, qualitative study, focus groups, public health, age differences, health behavior, Seoul, patient engagement, differences, motivations

The research examined a commercial environment in which informal markets are rapidly expanding while socioeconomic constraints persist. In this setting, second-hand consumption emerged from a combination of practical pressures, emerging ecological awareness and local socioeconomic and cultural realities. The findings therefore characterize buying second-hand products as a multifaceted consumer practice rather than solely a response to poverty or a shortage of alternatives. The study does not quantify the relative importance of individual motives, and its qualitative design does not establish that the views captured in the interviews represent all consumers in Cameroon or Sub-Saharan Africa.

Environmental motivation was one of the reasons identified by participants, but it operated alongside identity-related and experiential logics. Some participants were drawn to the distinctive value of second-hand goods or to the experience associated with obtaining and using them, while deeply rooted sociocultural norms influenced what people regarded as acceptable. Participants also evaluated the perceived quality and reliability of second-hand products, perceptions that could determine whether they trusted an item and intended to purchase it.

Interpersonal trust remained central even as digital platforms became increasingly visible. Face-to-face interaction was the dominant mode of exchange, reflecting persistent concerns about fraud and the importance placed on direct contact with sellers. The study indicates that digital options have not displaced in-person trading, but it does not provide numerical evidence about the prevalence or future trajectory of either exchange method.

By placing consumer motives in the context of Cameroon’s informal markets, the study offers implications for circular-economy practices in the Global South. It shows that participation in second-hand markets involves not only economic considerations but also environmental concerns, social meanings, experiential preferences, perceived product condition and confidence in sellers. These findings may help frame how second-hand consumption is understood within informal-market dynamics, rather than demonstrating that any particular policy or platform will increase reuse. The authors position the work as a contribution to marketing research and a contextual account of second-hand consumption in African informal markets.

Subject of Research: Exploratory qualitative research on consumer motivations for second-hand product purchases in urban Cameroon

Article Title: Motivations for purchasing second hand products in sub Saharan Africa and circular economy implications

Article References: Mbam, A. J., & Choutac, C. (2026). Motivations for purchasing second hand products in sub Saharan Africa and circular economy implications. Discover Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43621-026-04700-w

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43621-026-04700-w

Keywords: second-hand consumption, Cameroon, consumer behavior, informal markets, circular economy, qualitative interviews, interpersonal trust, environmental motivation, product quality, Global South, Motivations, purchasing