Fitness Tracker Sporting a real asset?

Influence of step meters on the sport motivation

Manufacturers of fitness trackers usually promise their customers support for optimum training. Among other things, the small devices can count steps or calculate the calorie consumption. What do such devices really do? Can they also influence sports motivation? Researchers from Chemnitz and Lübeck have now investigated this.

Regular exercise keeps you healthy

Regular exercise protects against numerous diseases and can help you lose weight. Health experts recommend walking at least 10,000 steps every day. Some people use step meters to check how much they are moving. In any case, nowadays more and more fitness trackers are used in sports. However, some experts say, such devices measure a lot of crap. But they can at least influence the motivation for sport. This question has now been pursued researchers of the Technical University (TU) Chemnitz and the University of Lübeck.

Researchers have investigated the impact of activity trackers on sports motivation. (Image: Maridav / fotolia.com)

Activity trackers can create a kind of dependency?

If you use Activity Tracker, you may be aware of the following situation: You go your usual way to work, want to take the stairs there and collect a few extra steps and then realize that you have forgotten your tracker at home.

What now? Nevertheless, take the stairs, although the extra steps are not covered by the tracker? Or then the elevator, because the additional steps are not recorded electronically?

These and similar cases have now Christiane Attig of the TU Chemnitz and Prof. Dr. med. Thomas Franke from the University of Lübeck.

They investigated the question of whether Activity Tracker can create a kind of dependency that shows up, for example, if you forgot the tracker.

The researchers also investigated whether this dependency is more pronounced for certain users than for others.

The results were published in the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies.

Fun lost in the movement

"The study was inspired by my own experiences - I myself have long had an Activity Tracker and increasingly noticed how I lost the fun of the movement and instead only did some activities, so I saw a nice result on my tracker," reported Christiane Attig in a message.

This behavior reminded the scientist of a well-known effect in social psychology:

"The corrosive effect is that a primary intrinsic motivation for an activity can be mitigated by external rewards."

In the case of tracker usage, this means that "rewarding me with a positive activity tracker for the sport that I enjoy is more likely to make the activity more work-like and therefore less fun." , says Attig.

"If the reward of the tracker then falls, an activity reduction can be the result."

Motivation losses due to Activity Tracker?

To investigate whether Activity Tracker's motivational losses actually occur in day-to-day use, the two experts designed an online study asking respondents to empathize with situations such as those described above and assess whether they are still in favor would decide on active behavior or activity reduction.

In addition to this effect on the behavioral level, possible consequences in the emotional or cognitive area were also recorded.

"It was also conceivable for us that the thoughts always revolve around whether the tracker is recording the activity correctly or that one is disappointed at the end of the day if the tracker feedback does not meet expectations," explains Franke.

Dependency effect confirmed

The results of the study suggest that tracker users are well aware of the dependency effect from their everyday lives - but not the majority of users.

About 18 percent of respondents said they tend to be less active if they do not wear their tracker. Disappointment with negative tracker feedback and a strong mental involvement with the tracker were reported by around 48 percent of respondents.

"Tracker usage does not have to negatively impact the motivation to move actively. Motivation loss is more likely, however, if you feel less fun in sports anyway, sports out of extrinsic motivation out - about to lose weight or get fitter - and if you do not use the tracker out of pure interest in the data, "said Franke.

The researchers conclude that loss of motivation does not necessarily have to be due to the effect of corruption, but that it could be a conceivable mechanism for the decline in the desire for sport.

Activity for its own sake

And what does that mean for users and producers of activity trackers??

"If you realize that maybe a little too often, you think about whether the tracker has taken all the steps or thinks that sporting activities were in vain if they were not recorded correctly, then it might help to realize that Ultimately, you always do the activities for yourself, "explains Attig.

Tracker should therefore be designed so that the feedback strengthens the autonomy of users. They should also convey the fun of moving, regardless of the number of steps on the display.

As part of a follow-up study, the two psychologists want to investigate whether the dependency effect could also lead to users no longer using their activity tracker at all.

"Tracker have a great potential to motivate people to more everyday movement, for example, to prevent obesity and cardiovascular disease. To take full advantage of this potential, it is important to understand the psychological impact Activity Tracker can have - both positive and negative, "says Attig.

The question of whether or not stairs will not be so difficult to answer then. (Ad)