Age matters: Analyzing age-related discussions in app reviews

Abstract

In recent years, mobile applications have become indispensable tools for managing various aspects of life. From enhancing productivity to providing personalized entertainment, mobile apps have revolutionized people’s daily routines. Despite this rapid growth and popularity, gaps remain in how these apps address the needs of users from different age groups. Users of varying ages face distinct challenges when interacting with mobile apps, from younger users dealing with inappropriate content to older users having difficulty with usability due to age-related vision and cognition impairments. Although there have been initiatives to create age-inclusive apps, a limited understanding of user perspectives on age-related issues may hinder developers from recognizing specific challenges and implementing effective solutions. In this study, we explore age discussions in app reviews to gain insights into how mobile apps should cater to users across different age groups. We manually curated a dataset of 4163 app reviews from the Google Play Store and identified 1429 age-related reviews and 2734 non-age-related reviews. We employed eight machine learning, deep learning, and large language models to automatically detect age discussions, with RoBERTa performing the best, achieving a precision of 92.46%. Additionally, a qualitative analysis of the 1429 age-related reviews uncovers six dominant themes reflecting user concerns: Age Appropriateness of Content, Language and Recommendations, Age Verification and Access Barriers, Usability and Accessibility Across Ages, Privacy and Safety Concerns, Interactions and Relationships and Recommendations and Feature Requests. Our findings reveal that users frequently encounter inappropriate content for children, struggle with strict or error-prone age verification systems, and emphasize the need for age-friendly accessibility and safety features. To address these issues, we offer actionable recommendations for app developers, including implementing flexible or gradient-based age restrictions, prioritizing safety features in kids’ apps, and strengthening parental controls.