Digital technologies, such as mobile devices and wearable sensors, are ingrained in daily life, making them a promising vehicle for delivering health behavior interventions. However, a critical challenge that undermines the utility of digital interventions is the suboptimal engagement of participants, where participant engagement is defined as the investment of physical, cognitive, and affective energies in a focal stimulus or task. Recent years have seen substantial growth in research aiming to understand how to increase engagement with digital interventions. This paper highlights several limitations of the existing evidence that restrict its scientific and practical utility and discusses opportunities for advancing the science of engagement with digital interventions. Synthesizing the current body of evidence, we call for conceptualizing digital interventions as a collection of stimuli (e.g., notifications, reminders) and tasks (e.g., open the mobile app, practice a relaxation technique) and considering engagement with digital interventions as a process rather than a state (i.e., momentary conditions/experiences) or trait (i.e., a relatively stable disposition). This approach has the potential to enhance scientific rigor and transparency in measuring, reporting, and interpreting engagement with digital interventions that would ultimately serve to bolster progress towards developing strategies for optimizing engagement.

中文翻译：

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迈向数字干预参与的科学。


移动设备和可穿戴传感器等数字技术在日常生活中根深蒂固，使其成为提供健康行为干预的有前途的工具。然而，破坏数字干预效用的一个关键挑战是参与者的参与度不理想，其中参与者参与被定义为将身体、认知和情感能量投入到焦点刺激或任务中。近年来，旨在了解如何提高数字干预参与度的研究取得了长足发展。本文强调了现有证据限制其科学和实际效用的几个局限性，并讨论了推进数字干预参与科学的机会。综合当前的证据，我们呼吁将数字干预概念化为刺激（例如，通知、提醒）和任务（例如，打开移动应用程序、练习放松技巧）的集合，并将参与数字干预视为一个过程，而不是一种状态（即，瞬间的条件/经历）或特征（即，相对稳定的性格）。这种方法有可能提高衡量、报告和解释数字干预参与度的科学严谨性和透明度，最终将有助于推动制定优化参与度策略的进展。