Text messaging to promote responsible personal listening device use in young adults

The objective of this study is to examine efficacy of text message reminders and to educate and promote safe personal listening device (PLD) use in young adults.

Three hundred and eighty-seven urban college students from an urban university located in New York City, New York, participated in this pre- and postsurvey 6-month study (September 2016-March 2017). One hundred and ninety-eight students assigned to Group 1 (safe PLD use) received biweekly informative and humorous text reminders to encourage safe PLD use; 189 students assigned to Group 2 (controls) received monthly text messages related to the importance of their participation in the study with no mention of responsible PLD use. The Kruskal-Wallis test was used to analyze the pre- and postquestionnaire data; outcomes were considered significant at P < 0.05.

Participants who received text message reminders reported significant (H[1] = 86.7, P < 0.001) change in increasing responsible PLD use; no significant change was reported by controls (H[1] = 0.002, P = 0.96). Females assigned to Group 1 reported modified PLD use more (H[1] = 6.7, P < 0.01) than males, suggesting a gender effect. Participants who received the bi-weekly text reminders rated them as helpful in promoting responsible PLD use; participants assigned to the control group who did not receive biweekly text reminders indicated the reminders could have been helpful in promoting safe PLD use.

Text message reminders were reported and appear effective in motivating responsible PLD use in young adults.