Abstract

Background

Wearable activity trackers offer considerable promise for helping users to adopt healthier lifestyles. This study aimed to explore users’ experience of activity trackers, including usage patterns, sharing of data to social media, perceived behaviour change (physical activity, diet and sleep), and technical issues/barriers to use.

Methods

A cross-sectional online survey was developed and administered to Australian adults who were current or former activity tracker users. Results were analysed descriptively, with differences between current and former users and wearable brands explored using independent samples t-tests, Mann-Whitney, and chi square tests.

Results

Participants included 200 current and 37 former activity tracker users (total N = 237) with a mean age of 33.1 years (SD 12.4, range 18–74 years). Fitbit (67.5%) and Garmin devices (16.5%) were most commonly reported. Participants typically used their trackers for sustained periods (5–7 months) and most intended to continue usage. Participants reported they had improved their physical activity (51–81%) more commonly than they had their diet (14–40%) or sleep (11–24%), and slightly more participants reported to value the real time feedback (89%) compared to the long-term monitoring (78%). Most users (70%) reported they had experienced functionality issues with their devices, most commonly related to battery life and technical difficulties.

Conclusions

Results suggest users find activity trackers appealing and useful tools for increasing perceived physical activity levels over a sustained period.

Details

Title
Users’ experiences of wearable activity trackers: a cross-sectional study
Author
Maher, Carol; Ryan, Jillian; Ambrosi, Christina; Edney, Sarah
First page
1
Section
Research article
Publication year
2017
Publication date
2017
Publisher
BioMed Central
e-ISSN
14712458
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2348347993
Copyright
© 2017. This work is licensed under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.