Can Touch Screens Make You Choose Unhealthy Food?

Date: 4 October 2017

Topic: Can Touch Screens Make You Choose Unhealthy Food?

Contributors:
Prof. Shen Hao and Prof. Zhang Meng, Department of Marketing, CUHK Business School

Introduction:

There is no doubt the Internet has changed our way of living. We can now do everything online: reading the news, shopping for the latest fashion, purchasing a movie ticket or the plane ticket for our next trip, and ordering our meals while sitting in our office or home. In fact, many fast food chains such as McDonald, Pizza Hut and KFC enable customers to order food online through their websites or mobile apps. Likewise, in many restaurants, iPads are offered to customers who can select their food and drinks with a touch on the digital menu.

While we are enjoying the convenience brought by technology, have we thought about how the digital world has really changed our lives, and perhaps also our choices?

The findings of the research titled “Computer Interfaces and the Direct-Touch Effect: Can iPads Increase the Choice of Hedonic Food? at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Business School have offered some interesting insights to the question.

Conducted by Associate Professors Shen Hao and Zhang Meng, both from CUHK Business School’s Department of Marketing, with their collaborator Professor Aradhna Krishna from the University of Michigan, the study observed the increasing use of technology such as customized mobile apps in the domain of food choice, and asked the question: What effect do these digital devices have on customers’ choice of food?

This video was originally published in China Business Knowledge@CUHK.