CU Denver Digital Design Senior Thesis Project

There are currently many different options that adult cigarette smokers in the United States can use to assist them when quitting smoking. There are nicotine patches, e-cigarettes/vapes, and even some mobile apps, which have all been designed to assist smokers in their transition to quit nicotine products. If there are so many  options for American smokers to choose from, then why do such low numbers of Americans successfully quit? All of these nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) products were not created equally, and each smoker is experiencing a different, personal situation. 

Nicotine patches are very easy to use (place on skin), and offer minimal side effects when compared to smoking. Users do report some skin irritation (blisters, scabs, etc.) and an increase in insomnia, however, these are minimal when compared to the health efects caused by smoking. The patch releases a dose of nicotine between 5 mg and 21 mg over the course of 24 hours, aiming to provide the smoker with roughly half the nicotine they would receive from smoking. While nicotine patches can help lower nicotine intake, they have not been proven to help smokers with craving episodes and feeling their withdrawals (Herman & Sofuoglu, 2010). Nicotine patches have been proven to help people quit smoking, however, many patch users who quit smoking do not quit nicotine, and continue to use NRT products. 

E-cigarettes and vapes offer high levels of nicotine in a very easily consumable way. The long term health effects of vaping are still being researched, and we have much more time before we fully understand what vaporizing various chemicals does to the human body.  E-cigarettes can be effective for very responsible and aware adult smokers, however, many smokers are not satisfied with vapes when compared to cigarettes. This can cause smokers to puff their vapes more often than they would smoke cigarettes. Between the lower satisfaction from the nicotine delivery, low odors produced, and high nicotine levels, e-cigarettes are liable to be abused. Most highly concentrated e-cigarettes can easily provide a smoker with just as much, if not more, nicotine than they would consume through cigarettes (Goldenson et al., 2020). Overall, e-cigarettes and vapes can be successful given the right situation, however, for the majority of smokers this technology will not assist them through the quitting process.

Mobile apps have varying levels of success among smokers, which has been greatly dependent on the features and design of each app, along with the age, gender, education, and engagement level of the user. Many “quit smoking” apps are required to be opened by the user, while they should be sending push notifications, messages, and reminders throughout the day to provide support for the user (Cobos-Campos et al., 2020). Men are more likely to prefer being “in control” of their quitting journey, and are much more likely to ignore a note/journal area than women, who are much more likely to use this feature to stay on track (Struik, L. L., Bottorff, J. L., Baskerville, N. B., & Oliffe, J. L. 2018). The implementation of a community or forum board had proven to not only inspire those to quit smoking, but provided users with a sense of not being alone in their fight against smoking (Thapaliya et al., 2021). Implementing features where users can input personal information and reasons to quit are essential for a quit smoking app to be successful, because every smoker wants to quit for their own reasons, and not every situation is going to be the same for every user.