32
These results suggest no significant changes in participants' reports of anxiety,
depression, loneliness, and perceived isolation over the three time points. The only exception
was the Howatt Loneliness Scale that indicated a significant decrease in loneliness.
Impact of the app over time (Test 1 to Test 3)
Differences over time based on usage of the app were also investigated. The results of
one-way ANOVA showed no significant difference among users who had no interaction, had
minimal interaction, or had meaningful interaction with the app at each time point of this study.
As seen in Table 7, this indicates there were no differences between participants who had no
interaction, minimal interaction, or meaningful interaction with the app at Time 1 regarding their
level of anxiety, depression, loneliness, and perceived isolation.
There also were no differences between participants who had no interaction, minimal
interaction, or meaningful interaction with the app at Time 2 or Time 3 in terms of their level of
anxiety, depression, loneliness, and perceived isolation. This suggests that usage levels of the
app did not impact participants' anxiety, depression, loneliness, or perceived isolation over time.
Changes over time based on usage of the app were then investigated. The results
indicated a significant change in loneliness measured by the Howatt Loneliness Scale among
those who had no interaction with the app, suggesting the considerable overall change in
loneliness was caused by external circumstances, not by app usage. There were no other
significant changes over time in any of the groups' variables.
The results suggest that app usage could not account for changes in the Howatt
Loneliness Scale. Although these findings do not support the app's effectiveness, they are not
conclusive. The sample size was not statistically sufficient nor consistent across three groups (no
interaction = 26; minimal interaction = 33; meaningful interaction = 3).
