Exploratory study of a virtual community for physical activity

Lamia Elloumi,Bert-Jan Van Beijnum,Hermie Hermens

doi:10.1007/s12553-018-0221-y

Lamia Elloumi, Bert-Jan Van Beijnum + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12553-018-0221-y

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Abstract

Physical inactivity is increasingly becoming part of today’s lifestyle, leading to a rapid increase in the incidence of diseases including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity. These chronic diseases are, for the most part, preventable by adopting a healthy lifestyle including regular physical activity. To help people maintain appropriate physical activity levels, researchers are developing interventions based on concepts from social science and ICT solutions. In this line, we investigate virtual communities (or social networks) as a candidate solution to support people in achieving their daily physical activity goals. This study observes and explores the differences between using the virtual community and a physical activity monitoring system on the physical activity level. We designed an exploratory study with a duration of 9 weeks in which an intervention group used a virtual community with a physical activity monitoring system and a control group used only a physical activity monitoring system. The results of this exploratory study demonstrate that using virtual communities may motivate and support people in their daily physical activity; in particular, we observed a decrease in the use of the system later than was observed in previous studies. Future investigations are needed to confirm the effect of the virtual community on physical activity.

Highlights

According to the World Health Organization [1], physical inactivity is the fourth leading risk factor for global mortality, causing an estimated 3.2 million deaths globally
TogetherActive V2 showed an improvement in usability results for the overall system usability and the system usefulness factors compared to TogetherActive [11]
This study is an exploratory study that addresses the potential differences between a virtual community coupled with a physical activity monitoring system and a traditional physical activity system

Summary

Introduction

According to the World Health Organization [1], physical inactivity is the fourth leading risk factor for global mortality, causing an estimated 3.2 million deaths globally. Social support contributes positively to physical activity behaviour change [2]. Existing ICT-based systems, e.g., social networks, are mainly used to provide emotional and informational support for health behaviour change. Many interventions and systems have been developed to help people be more physically active, e.g., apps to promote physical activity [5], active video games [6] and Internet-based physical activity interventions [7, 8]. Many of these interventions have been successful [9], a decrease in their use is typically observed after a short period [10]. As a basis for solving the Health Technol. (2018) 8:81–95 compliance problem and providing all different form of social support, the virtual community is a promising ICT-based system for support in daily physical activity

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