Abstract
The paper presents a qualitative study to explore the use of fitness trackers and their social functions in intergenerational settings. The study covered three phases of semi-structured interviews with older and younger adults during individual and intergenerational use of the fitness trackers. The study revealed comparability as common fitness practice for older adults. The findings show that intergenerational fitness tracking practices can increase in-person meetings and daily discourses and thus enhance family social bonds. An unexpected benefit of this practice is its ability to help older adults overcome technology barriers related to the use of fitness trackers. Overall speaking, families whose intergenerational members already enjoy a strong relationship are likely to gain the most from such practices. Many challenges remain especially concerning the motivation and involvement of younger partners and the user experience design aspect of such digital programs. For this purpose, we have developed some recommendations for the future development and deployment of intergenerational fitness tracking systems to stimulate interactions between younger and older family members and thus to promote their physical and emotional well-being.
Highlights
We focus on Intergenerational interactions between old and young users, and we hypothesize that using fitness tracking technology in an intergenerational social context can be beneficial for older adults
We further found that intergenerational fitness practices encourage in-person meetings and daily discourses between the generations, and as a consequence, social bonds between family members are strengthened
Our finding contrasts with prior studies that suggested people might respond poorly to within-family competitions (Grimes et al 2009), or they might be not interested in comparing themselves with their friends due to differences in their physical capabilities (Gui et al 2017). It seems when it comes to familial intergenerational fitness practices, competition makes more sense, and in particular, older adults are enthusiastic in comparing themselves with their buddies
Summary
Familial intergenerational interactions promote sharing health information between older and younger adults (Sandbulte et al 2019). Such familial interactions can facilitate digital literacy (Uhlenberg 2000) and contribute to learning new technologies for older adults (Mori and Harada 2010; D’Haeseleer et al 2019; Leung et al 2012). One past work (Mori and Harada 2010) showed Japanese older adults who are living with larger families, for example, their grandchildren, learn how to use mobile phones more quickly than those who live with smaller families. Their findings showed that older adults from larger families can better learn how to use advanced technology features such as taking photos and sending emails (Mori and Harada 2010)
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