Living well? The unintended consequences of highly popular commercial fitness apps through social listening using Machine‐Assisted Topic Analysis: Evidence from X

BackgroundIn today’s society, commercial physical activity apps (eg, Fitbit and Strava) are ubiquitous and hold considerable potential to increase physical activity behavior. Many commercial physical activity apps incorporate social components, in particular app-specific communities (allowing users to interact with other app users) or the capacity to connect to existing social networking platforms (eg, Facebook or Instagram). There is a growing need to gain greater insights into whether commercial physical activity apps and specific components of these apps (social components) are beneficial in facilitating physical activity.ObjectiveThis study aimed to examine the relationship between the use of commercial physical activity apps and engagement in physical activity. The social components of commercial physical activity apps (app-specific communities and existing social networking platforms) were also explored. This involved isolating specific features (eg, sharing, providing, and receiving encouragement, comparisons, and competitions) of app-specific communities and existing social networking platforms that were most valuable in facilitating physical activity.MethodsA cross-sectional web-based survey was conducted. Participants were 1432 adults (mean age 34.1 years, 1256/1432, 88.00% female) who completed measures assessing physical activity, the use of commercial physical activity apps, and engagement with app-specific communities and existing social networking platforms.ResultsOverall, 53.14% (761/1432) of the sample reported engaging with a commercial physical activity app. The most commonly used apps were Fitbit (171/761, 22.5%), Strava (130/761, 17.1%), and Garmin (102/761, 13.4%). The use of physical activity apps was significantly associated with physical activity. Notably, the use of app-specific communities and existing social networking platforms facilitated significantly greater engagement in physical activity. The features of app-specific communities that were most beneficial in promoting engagement in physical activity were providing encouragement to a partner, receiving encouragement from close friends and family, and engaging in competitions with members of public app-specific communities. In relation to existing social networking platforms, sharing physical activity posts predicted engagement in physical activity.ConclusionsThe findings indicate that app-specific communities and existing social networking platforms are components of apps that are fundamental in facilitating physical activity. They further suggest that commercial physical activity apps afford high population level reach and hold great potential to promote engagement in physical activity, an important public health consideration.

Users of mobile health and fitness apps should not assume that any of their data is private or protected, says a report by the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a non-profit privacy...

Issue During the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent outbreaks, health organizations have increased the use of social listening to inform infodemic management and outbreak response activities. This demonstrated the need to provide ethical guidance to organizations, and individuals engaging in social listening practices before, during and after public health emergencies, whilst protecting human rights. Description of the problem Social listening as a public health activity draws on analysis of conversations in social media, internet platforms, and feedback from geographically localized communities. Infodemic insights are generated rapidly, to support agile action by health organizations that improves outbreak response, health information delivery, community engagement, or reduction of unintended harm experiences by communities. Social listening involves use of social media and internet trace data, which were traditionally not used in public health for understanding community expressions, WHO convened a panel of experts to develop a framework on ethical considerations for social listening in infodemic management to provide recommendations for health authorities and researchers on practical tools that support setting up new data analysis and use of insights hereto not used in routine. Results The guidance framework has been structured into segments that vary from ethical principles and challenges in social listening and generation of infodemic insights, alignment with human rights, substantive principles, procedural principles, and practical guidance for translating these principles into real-world practice. Lessons This guidance aims to illuminate the intricate ethical dimensions of social listening and stress the urgent need for ethical guidance in this realm. The framework is a comprehensive inquiry of the ethical scope in social listening, providing valuable insights, practical guidance, and case studies to enhance understanding of this critical global health issue. Key messages • While essential, social listening and infodemic insights come with ethical risks, including potential harm to populations in vulnerable situations, erosion of trust, and misuse of data. • This ethical framework will govern social listening practices and ensure responsible and ethical social listening.

In today's digital age, social media has emerged as a vital platform for businesses to connect with their customers. As of July 2023, there are 5.19 billion internet users worldwide, which amounted to 64.6 percent of the global population. Of this total, 4.88 billion, or 59.9 percent of the world's population, were social media users (Source : Statista ). Tech and policy think tank Esya Centre has found that daily engagement of Indians in terms of time spent is the highest for social media at 194 minutes a day. This number for OTT and Online Gaming stands at 44 minutes and 46 minutes, respectively. Thus it has become important for organizations to be available on these social media platforms to connect with customers. Presence of organizations on Social media platforms has helped companies connect with common people , end users. Social listening, the practice of monitoring and analyzing online conversations and discussions, has gained significant attention as a strategic tool for understanding customer sentiments and preferences. This research article presents a comprehensive review of the concept of social listening and its pivotal role in enhancing customer engagement and retention strategies. To provide a comprehensive perspective, the article also mentions about various organizations that have successfully integrated social listening into their customer-centric strategies. In sum, this research article sheds light on the role of social listening in customer engagement and retention by making use of the insights derived from social listening. Keywords: Social Listening, Social Media, Customer Engagement, Ethics

Comparison of Food Composition Databases from Two Popular Commercial Nutrition Apps with a Research Food and Nutrient Database

Traditionally, motivation researchers have been more concerned about what motivation is rather than how to motivate students. Recently, research interests have shifted towards educational purposes and an increasing number of studies now propose motivational strategies. Motivational strategies refer to “methods and techniques to generate and maintain the learners’ motivation” (Dörnyei, 2001, p. 2). Using motivational strategies is generally believed to facilitate students’ motivation, but only a few studies have found empirical evidence to support this claim. For example, Hiromori (2006) used “creative writing activities with student self-monitoring techniques” as a motivational strategy and showed that the strategy had a significant positive effect on students’ motivation toward learning English. Tanaka and Hiromori (2007) proposed that “group presentation activities” are a useful motivational strategy. They successfully enhanced students’ intrinsic motivation during a 5-week intervention. However, the number of studies that examine the effect of motivational strategies in the actual English language classroom is limited. In this article, I would like to point out two drawbacks of the above studies. The first drawback is related to the definition of motivation. Most of the preceding studies on motivation define motivation as a trait attribute. However, many researchers segmentalize motivation into different levels (e.g. Crookes & Schmidt, 1991). Vallerand and Ratelle (2002) analyzed intrinsic motivation in three levels, namely situational level, contextual level, and global level. They recommend that motivation be considered not merely as a unitary concept, but as a complex concept. However, studies examining the effect of motivational strategies focus only on the trait and unitary aspects of motivation. Thus, there needs to be an examination of the effect of motivational strategies on motivation in different levels. In this article, three types of intrinsic motivation are addressed, namely intrinsic motivation to listening/speaking activities, intrinsic classroom motivation, and intrinsic trait motivation. The second drawback concerns research design. Much of the research that examines the effect of motivational strategies adopts a pre-post design. However, in order to capture motivational changes in more detail, adding more measurement times would be useful. In this article, intrinsic motivation was measured at three different times; that is, pre-measurement, mid-measurement, and post-measurement. Thus, this study aims to enhance students’ intrinsic motivation in three levels. I adopt Self-Determination Theory (SDT), a well-developed motivation theory in psychology, as the theoretical underpinning. This theory provides a useful framework for examining the effect of motivational strategy because it assumes the existence of three psychological needs (i.e., the need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness) as prerequisites for enhancing student motivation. The purposes of this study are as follows: (1) to enhance intrinsic motivation to engage in listening activities; (2) to enhance intrinsic motivation to engage in speaking activities; (3) to enhance intrinsic classroom motivation; and (4) to enhance intrinsic trait motivation. This study further explores facilitating factors of intrinsic motivation in the three levels. Thus, this article also aims (5) to examine which psychological need (the need for autonomy, competence or relatedness) plays the most significant role in students’ motivational development; and (6) to explore new facilitating factors of intrinsic motivation. Fifty-two university students who were enrolled in a first-year English language course participated in this study. The students met once a week in a 90-minute class. The intervention was given to them for fifteen weeks. Prior to the beginning of the intervention, students were given questionnaires about language learning motivation and the three psychological needs. The same questionnaires were administered in the middle and at the end of the intervention. An open-ended questionnaire was also administered to students at the post-measurement stage. The results of the quantitative analysis showed that: (1) the intervention had a significant positive effect on students’ intrinsic motivation to engage in listening/speaking activities and intrinsic classroom motivation; (2) the need for competence had a strong relationship with the development in students’ intrinsic motivation to engage in listening activities; (3) the need for competence and relatedness had a strong relationship with development in students’ intrinsic motivation to engage in speaking activities; (4) all three needs were related to the development in intrinsic classroom motivation. Further, the results of qualitative analysis indicated that (5) “usefulness” might be another facilitating factor of motivation. 本論は，3つのレベルの内発的動機づけを高める方略の効果検証を行い，各動機づけを高めた要因を探索することを目的とする。日本人大学生52名を対象に教育的介入を行い，プレ測定，中間測定，ポスト測定によって動機づけの変動を検討した。その結果，（1）教育的介入によって，授業活動レベルの動機づけと英語授業への動機づけが高まった，（2）リスニング活動への動機づけの上昇と関連が強かったのは，有能性の欲求であった，（3）スピーキング活動への動機づけの上昇と関連が強かったのは，有能性と関係性の欲求であった，（4）英語授業への動機づけの上昇と関連が強かったのは，3欲求のすべてであった。また方略の効果を質的研究の観点からも検証した結果，（5）授業活動レベルの動機づけの上昇と3欲求の関連性が裏付けられた，（6）「実用性の付与」が内発的動機づけを高める新たな要因である可能性が示された。

Background People with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) desire dietary information1 and use social media to fill the information gap.2 We aimed to capitalise on the large volume of commentary available in social media groups to determine frequently asked dietary questions and nutrition-related topics regarding this condition, utilising the Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer 4 model (ChatGPT-4) to facilitate social listening analysis. Methods Following ethical guidelines and the approval of Facebook group administrators, social listening techniques were used to extract 11,945 online community comments (2021-2023). All data was deidentified and cleaned according to ethical standards, ensuring only context-specific comments were included for analysis. The data was analysed using content and thematic analysis and ChatGPT-4. Duplicate thematic analysis explored the meaning of the comments. The ChatGPT-4 large language model was trained on 10% of manually coded data using the few-shot learning technique.3 Results from both manual and ChatGPT-4 coding were manually reviewed for congruence to ensure the model’s analysis was suitable and could then be applied to all data. Results Moderate percentage agreement existed between manual and model coded data (75%). Medical therapy (31.2%) and diet-related comments (37.5%) dominated the conversations. A total of 350 unique diet-related queries emerged. Content analysis of these indicated the most commonly mentioned diet-related topics were management of gastrointestinal/extraintestinal symptoms (37.8%), natural therapies/dietary approaches to manage symptoms (20%) and maintenance of nutritional status (5.6%). Thematic analysis indicated five interrelated themes: desire for support and connection; exasperation and desire for information; open to considering advice from non-experts; desire for food to be thy medicine and IBD holds me back. Conclusion Using ChatGPT-4-enabled social listening of IBD Facebook groups, verified with traditional qualitative techniques, improved efficiency in handling large volumes of qualitative information and identified key dietary concerns prevalent in online discussions. Future studies should establish methodological and reporting standards for artificial intelligence-enabled social listening to ensure comparability between studies. With respect to individuals with IBD, Facebook groups provided immediate access to information and connection, compensating for the perceived lack of timely access to a knowledgeable and empathetic multidisciplinary care team. Improving access to specialized professionals, including dietitians well-versed in IBD, could reduce reliance on these platforms as a primary source of information.

BackgroundThere are thousands of apps promoting dietary improvement, increased physical activity (PA) and weight management. Despite a growing number of reviews in this area, popular apps have not been comprehensively analysed in terms of features related to engagement, functionality, aesthetics, information quality, and content, including the types of change techniques employed.MethodsThe databases containing information about all Health and Fitness apps on GP and iTunes (7,954 and 25,491 apps) were downloaded in April 2015. Database filters were applied to select the most popular apps available in both stores. Two researchers screened the descriptions selecting only weight management apps. Features, app quality and content were independently assessed using the Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS) and previously-defined categories of techniques relevant to behaviour change. Inter-coder reliabilities were calculated, and correlations between features explored.ResultsOf the 23 popular apps included in the review 16 were free (70 %), 15 (65 %) addressed weight control, diet and PA combined; 19 (83 %) allowed behavioural tracking. On 5-point MARS scales, apps were of average quality (Md = 3.2, IQR = 1.4); “functionality” (Md = 4.0, IQR = 1.1) was the highest and “information quality” (Md = 2.0, IQR = 1.1) was the lowest domain. On average, 10 techniques were identified per app (range: 1–17) and of the 34 categories applied, goal setting and self-monitoring techniques were most frequently identified. App quality was positively correlated with number of techniques included (rho = .58, p < .01) and number of “technical” features (rho = .48, p < .05), which was also associated with the number of techniques included (rho = .61, p < .01). Apps that provided tracking used significantly more techniques than those that did not. Apps with automated tracking scored significantly higher in engagement, aesthetics, and overall MARS scores. Those that used change techniques previously associated with effectiveness (i.e., goal setting, self-monitoring and feedback) also had better “information quality”.ConclusionsPopular apps assessed have overall moderate quality and include behavioural tracking features and a range of change techniques associated with behaviour change. These apps may influence behaviour, although more attention to information quality and evidence-based content are warranted to improve their quality.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12966-016-0359-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

With a growing number of health and wellness applications (apps), there is a need to explore exactly what third parties can legally do with personal data. Following a review of the online privacy policies of a select set of mobile health and fitness apps, this chapter assessed the privacy policies of four popular health and fitness apps, using a checklist that comprised five privacy risk categories. Privacy risks, were based on two questions: a) is important information missing to make informed decisions about the use of personal data? and b) is information being shared that might compromise the end-user's right to privacy of that information? The online privacy policies of each selected app was further examined to identify important privacy risks. From this, a separate checklist was completed and compared to reach an agreement of the presence or absence of each privacy risk category. This chapter concludes with a set of recommendations when designing privacy policies for the sharing of personal information collected from health and fitness apps.

BackgroundMuch research in human-computer interaction has focused on well-being and how it can be better supported through a range of technologies, from affective interfaces to mindfulness systems. At the same time, we have seen a growing number of commercial digital well-being apps. However, there has been limited scholarly work reviewing these apps.ObjectiveThis paper aims to report on an autoethnographic study and functionality review of the 39 most popular commercial digital well-being apps on Google Play Store and 17 apps described in academic papers.MethodsFrom 1250 apps on Google Play Store, we selected 39 (3.12%) digital well-being apps, and from Google Scholar, we identified 17 papers describing academic apps. Both sets of digital well-being apps were analyzed through a review of their functionalities based on their descriptions. The commercial apps were also analyzed through autoethnography, wherein the first author interacted with them to understand how these functionalities work and how they may be experienced by users in their daily lives.ResultsOur findings indicate that these apps focus mostly on limiting screen time, and we advanced a richer conversation about such apps, articulating the distinctions among monitoring use, tracking use against set limits, and 4 specific interventions supporting limited use.ConclusionsWe conclude with 6 implications for designing digital well-being apps, namely calling to move beyond screen time and support the broader focus of digital well-being; supporting meaningful use rather than limiting meaningless use; leveraging (digital) navigation in design for friction; supporting collaborative interaction to limit phone overuse; supporting explicit, time-based visualizations for monitoring functionality; and supporting the ethical design of digital well-being apps.

Psychological mechanisms underlying the relationship between commercial physical activity app use and physical activity engagement

Smartphone Applications for Patients' Health and Fitness

BACKGROUND People with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) desire dietary information. Social media groups are popular among this cohort to exchange dietary information. We aimed to capitalise on the large volume of commentary available in social media groups to determine frequently asked dietary questions and nutrition-related topics regarding this condition, utilising the Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer 4 model (ChatGPT-4) to facilitate social listening analysis. METHOD Following ethical guidelines and the approval of Facebook group administrators, social listening techniques were used to extract 11,945 online community comments (from 2021-2023). All data was deidentified and cleaned according to ethical standards, ensuring only context-specific comments were included for analysis. The data was analysed using content and thematic analysis and ChatGPT-4. Thematic analysis was conducted in duplicate to explore the meaning of the comments. The ChatGPT-4 large language model was trained on 10% of manually coded data using the few-shot learning technique. Results from both manual and ChatGPT-4 coding were reviewed for congruence to ensure the artificial intelligence model was suitable and could then be applied to all data. RESULTS Moderate percentage agreement existed between manual and model coded data (75%). Medical therapy (31.2%) and diet-related comments (37.5%) dominated the conversations. A total of 350 unique diet-related queries emerged. Content analysis of these indicated the most commonly mentioned diet-related topics were management of gastrointestinal/extraintestinal symptoms (37.8%), natural therapies/dietary approaches to manage/control symptoms (20%) and maintenance of nutritional status (5.6%). Thematic analysis indicated five interrelated themes: a desire for support and connection; exasperation and desire for information; open to considering advice from non-experts; a desire for food to be thy medicine and IBD holds me back. CONCLUSION In this study, we utilised ChatGPT-4-enabled social listening of IBD Facebook groups and verified findings from this approach with traditional qualitative techniques. This approach reduced time and improved efficiency in extracting and exploring large volumes of qualitative information from a diverse sample. Future studies should establish methodological and reporting standards for artificial intelligence-enabled social listening to ensure comparability between studies. With respect to individuals with IBD, Facebook groups provided immediate access to information and connection, compensating for the perceived lack of timely access to a knowledgeable and empathetic multidisciplinary care team. Improving access to specialized professionals, including dietitians well-versed in IBD, could reduce reliance on these platforms as a primary source of information.

BackgroundCardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) assessment provides key information regarding general health status that has high clinical utility. In addition, in the sports setting, CRF testing is needed to establish a baseline level, prescribe an individualized training program and monitor improvement in athletic performance. As such, the assessment of CRF has both clinical and sports utility. Technological advancements have led to increased digitization within healthcare and athletics. Nevertheless, further investigation is needed to enhance the validity and reliability of existing fitness apps for CRF assessment in both contexts.ObjectivesThe present review aimed to (1) systematically review the scientific literature, examining the validity and reliability of apps designed for CRF assessment; and (2) systematically review and qualitatively score available fitness apps in the two main app markets. Lastly, this systematic review outlines evidence-based practical recommendations for developing future apps that measure CRF.Data SourcesThe following sources were searched for relevant studies: PubMed, Web of Science®, ScopusTM, and SPORTDiscus, and data was also found within app markets (Google Play and the App Store).Study Eligibility CriteriaEligible scientific studies examined the validity and/or reliability of apps for assessing CRF through a field-based fitness test. Criteria for the app markets involved apps that estimated CRF.Study Appraisal and Synthesis MethodsThe scientific literature search included four major electronic databases and the timeframe was set between 01 January 2000 and 31 October 2018. A total of 2796 articles were identified using a set of fitness-related terms, of which five articles were finally selected and included in this review. The app market search was undertaken by introducing keywords into the search engine of each app market without specified search categories. A total of 691 apps were identified using a set of fitness-related terms, of which 88 apps were finally included in the quantitative and qualitative synthesis.ResultsFive studies focused on the scientific validity of fitness tests with apps, while only two of these focused on reliability. Four studies used a sub-maximal fitness test via apps. Out of the scientific apps reviewed, the SA-6MWTapp showed the best validity against a criterion measure (r = 0.88), whilst the InterWalk app showed the highest test–retest reliability (ICC range 0.85–0.86).LimitationsLevels of evidence based on scientific validity/reliability of apps and on commercial apps could not be robustly determined due to the limited number of studies identified in the literature and the low-to-moderate quality of commercial apps.ConclusionsThe results from this scientific review showed that few apps have been empirically tested, and among those that have, not all were valid or reliable. In addition, commercial apps were of low-to-moderate quality, suggesting that their potential for assessing CRF has yet to be realized. Lastly, this manuscript has identified evidence-based practical recommendations that apps might potentially offer to objectively and remotely assess CRF as a complementary tool to traditional methods in the clinical and sports settings.

BackgroundEfforts to improve snacking and drinking habits are needed to promote a healthy body mass index (BMI) in adolescents. Although commercial fitness and nutrition mobile phone apps are widely used, little is known regarding their potential to improve health behaviors, especially in adolescents. In addition, evidence on the mechanisms through which such fitness and nutrition apps influence behavior is lacking.ObjectivesThis study assessed whether the use of commercial fitness or nutrition apps was associated with a lower BMI and healthier snacking and drinking habits in adolescents. Additionally, it explored if perceived behavioral control to eat healthy; attitudes to eat healthy for the good taste of healthy foods, for overall health or for appearance; social norm on healthy eating and social support to eat healthy mediated the associations between the frequency of use of fitness or nutrition apps and BMI, the healthy snack, and beverage ratio.MethodsCross-sectional self-reported data on snack and beverage consumption, healthy eating determinants, and fitness and nutrition app use of adolescents (N=889; mean age 14.7 years, SD 0.8; 54.8% [481/878] boys; 18.1% [145/803] overweight) were collected in a representative sample of 20 schools in Flanders, Belgium. Height and weight were measured by the researchers. The healthy snack ratio and the healthy beverage ratio were calculated as follows: gram healthy snacks or beverages/(gram healthy snacks or beverages+gram unhealthy snacks or beverages)×100. Multilevel regression and structural equation modeling were used to analyze the proposed associations and to explore multiple mediation.ResultsA total of 27.6% (245/889) of the adolescents used fitness, nutrition apps or both. Frequency of using nutrition apps was positively associated with a higher healthy beverage ratio (b=2.96 [1.11], P=.008) and a higher body mass index z-scores (zBMI; b=0.13 [0.05], P=.008. A significant interaction was found between the frequency of using nutrition and for the zBMI (b=−0.03 [0.02], P=.04) and the healthy snack ratio (b=−0.84 [0.37], P=.03). Attitude to eat healthy for appearance mediated both the fitness app use frequency-zBMI (a × b=0.02 [0.01], P=.02) and the nutrition app use frequency-zBMI (a × b=0.04 [0.01], P=.001) associations. No mediation was observed for the associations between the frequency of use of fitness or nutrition apps and the healthy snack or beverage ratio.ConclusionsCommercial fitness and nutrition apps show some association with healthier eating behaviors and BMI in adolescents. However, effective behavior change techniques should be included to affect key determinants of healthy eating.