COVID-19 contact tracing applications: An analysis of individual motivations for adoption and use

Abstract

In attempts to remediate the COVID-19 pandemic, governments internationally released contact tracing and exposure notification mobile applications seeking to limit the transmission of the disease by recording app user’s contact with other apps users. To address user adoption and usage challenges, we conducted a qualitative study of approximately 300 users and 300 non-users of one such contact tracing application, ABTraceTogether. This article highlights four of our main findings: having a sense of individual agency, trust in the application developers and sponsors, belief in the efficacy of the app, and altruism or pro-social beliefs. These findings are useful for application developers to target development and promotional issues to address adoption and usage challenges.