Are We Overthinking Patients Downloading Healthcare Apps?

I just bought a new cell phone (The Google Pixel 4a for those that wonder and yes, it says a lot about me).  I’m an Android user and always have been an Android user.  I also use Google voice, so switching phones was easy.  I logged in with my Google account and everything was ready to go (Note: there’s probably a lesson here for Healthcare too).  I had to log into a few apps and redo my home screen, but that’s about it.

What was interesting about this experience is that I realized that I had 163 apps installed on my phone.  163!  I couldn’t believe it.  Talk about app proliferation.  As I thought about it, there are probably 5-10 apps (email, social, maps, text, scriptures) that I use every day or at least multiple times a week.  There are 15-20 apps I use a few times a month (food, flight, documents, games).  The rest of the apps I use pretty rarely.  While there are some I should get rid of (old conference apps), most of them are things that I may use in the future (parking app) so there’s no reason for me to get rid of them.  However, they play such a little part of my day that they certainly don’t influence my life.