Knowledge Shot: Can a smartphone app help you quit smoking

We all know that smoking cigarettes is dangerous, and quitting smoking is one of the best things you can do for your health.

The problem is quitting nicotine is extremely difficult.

But now, there’s a new tool to help people quit—smartphones.

The appeal of smartphones is that they are on a person’s body almost all the time and they can serve up apps to people around the world.

But can a digital app actually help you quit smoking irl?

To address this question researchers ran a full-scale, long-term, global trial to see how effective a smartphone app is at helping someone quit smoking.

The trial worked like this: over a 5-month period, an app designed to help you stop smoking was available for a free download in the Apple App Store in the USA, UK, Australia, and Singapore.

The study focused on people over age 18 who smoked daily—some of these people were randomized into an intervention group that received a version of the app that had features designed to help them quit, while other people were randomized into a control group that received a version of the app that only gave them unstructured information about quitting smoking.

Both versions of the app recorded the date that a person quit smoking and then followed-up with their progress after 24 hours, 10 days, 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months.

The 1 month follow-up was considered the primary outcome of the study.

The study was double-blinded—meaning that neither the participants or the researchers knew which group they were in.

Now the app designed to help smokers quit had four main features.

First, it gave them a decision-aid feature that guided the user through the risks and benefits of different quitting strategies—like nicotine replacement therapy, or hypnosis—to help the user decide which strategy interested them the most so that they could use it along with the app.

Second, the app sent out push notifications like daily motivational messages.