Fitbit Users Research Articles

Perceptions of Physical Activity Tracking Devices: A Survey Analysis

Most adults fail to meet recommended physical activity (PA) guidelines. PA tracking technologies may help increase activity because they facilitate self-monitoring and self-regulation. In response to recent calls for testing the effectiveness of these technologies, this study surveyed opinions of Fitbit users within a university setting. Participants (N = 371, Mage = 31.3, SD = 14.4) responded to an online survey that gauged perceived usefulness and adoption of Fitbit. Analyses revealed that 97.3% of the respondents used Fitbit to track PA, while others did it to track heart rate or to compete against others. The majority of respondents (80.9%) reported increased PA levels as a result of Fitbit use, and 63.5% reported Fitbit had a very positive impact on their health. Most respondents (88.1%) also reported they liked using Fitbit. With regard to continued use, a portion of respondents (67.7%) reported intentions for continued use to increase PA in the future. Respondents’ reported satisfaction with Fitbit use was significantly associated with the perceived usefulness of Fitbit’s mobile application, perceived impact of Fitbit on health, and intentions for future use (p < .001). Qualitative analysis revealed three major themes: (1) criticism related to use, (2) positive comments related to use, and (3) comments related to mobile application. Results suggest that novel advances, such as Fitbit, could hold unique potentials to improve PA behaviors. Subscribe to TPE

Beyond novelty effect: a mixed-methods exploration into the motivation for long-term activity tracker use.

ObjectivesActivity trackers hold the promise to support people in managing their health through quantified measurements about their daily physical activities. Monitoring personal health with quantified activity tracker-generated data provides patients with an opportunity to self-manage their health. Many have been conducted within short-time frames; makes it difficult to discover the impact of the activity tracker’s novelty effect or the reasons for the device’s long-term use. This study explores the impact of novelty effect on activity tracker adoption and the motivation for sustained use beyond the novelty period.Materials and methodsThis study uses a mixed-methods approach that combines both quantitative activity tracker log analysis and qualitative one-on-one interviews to develop a deeper behavioral understanding of 23 Fitbit device users who used their trackers for at least 2 months (range of use = 69–1073 days).ResultsLog data from users’ Fitbit devices revealed 2 stages: the novelty period and the long-term use period. The novelty period for Fitbit users in this study was approximately 3 months, during which they might have discontinued using their devices.DiscussionThe qualitative interview data identified various factors that users to continuously use the Fitbit devices in different stages. The discussion of these results provides design implications to guide future development of activity tracking technology.ConclusionThis study reveals important dynamics emerging over long-term activity tracker use, contributes new knowledge to consumer health informatics and human-computer interaction, and offers design implications to guide future development of similar health-monitoring technologies that better account for long-term use in support of patient care and health self-management.

Reflection Companion

Mobile, wearable and other connected devices allow people to collect and explore large amounts of data about their own activities, behavior, and well-being. Yet, learning from-, and acting upon such data remain a challenge. The process of reflection has been identified as a key component of such learning. However, most tools do not explicitly design for reflection, carrying an implicit assumption that providing access to self-tracking data is sufficient. In this paper, we present Reflection Companion, a mobile conversational system that supports engaging reflection on personal sensed data, specifically physical activity data collected with fitness trackers. Reflection Companion delivers daily adaptive mini-dialogues and graphs to users' mobile phones to promote reflection. To generate our system's mini dialogues, we conducted a set of workshops with fitness trackers users, producing a diverse corpus of 275 reflection questions synthesized into a set of 25 reflection mini dialogues. In a 2-week field deployment with 33 active Fitbit users, we examined our system's ability to engage users in reflection through dialog. Results suggest that the mini-dialogues were successful in triggering reflection and that this reflection led to increased motivation, empowerment, and adoption of new behaviors. As a strong indicator of our system's value, 16 of the 33 participants elected to continue using the system for two additional weeks without compensation. We present our findings and describe implications for the design of technology-supported dialog systems for reflection on data.

I feel my wrist buzz. Smartbody and performative sensibility in Fitbit devices

Abstract This paper discusses the concepts of performative sensibility and smartbody. The central thesis is that performative sensibility highlights the instrumental nature of sensations in which objects act on the world. We show how the prescriptions of this new sensibility associated with wearables affect the body and subjectivity that we propose to call a smartbody. There were one hundred testimonials analyzed from the oldest thread with the greatest number of comments in the Fitbit user community forum. Quantitative tools and actor-network theory were used as a guide to assemble and analyze the corpus. The preliminary findings show that Fitbit users demonstrate particular changings in body care. Extreme behaviors, physical limits defined by system goals and quantification habits without utilizing the device are some of the examples found. These findings appear to indicate that the performative sensibility of wearables mobilizes new body performatic patterns and practices oriented by data.

Harnessing Long Term Physical Activity Data—How Long-term Trackers Use Data and How an Adherence-based Interface Supports New Insights

Increasingly, people are amassing long term physical activity data which could play an important role for reflection. However, it is not clear if and how existing trackers use their long term data and incomplete data is a potential challenge. We introduced the notion of adherence to design iStuckWithIt, a custom calendar display that integrates and embeds daily adherence (days with data and days without), hourly adherence (hours of wear each day) and goal adherence (days people achieved their activity goals). Our study of 21 long term FitBit users (average: 23 months, 17 over 1 year) began with an interview about their use and knowledge of long term physical activity data followed by a think-aloud use of iStuckWithIt and a post-interview. Our participants gained new insights about their wearing patterns and they could then use this to overcome problems of missing data, to gain insights about their physical activity and goal achievement. This work makes two main contributions: new understanding of the ways that long term trackers have used and understand their data; the design and evaluation of iStuckWithIt demonstrating that people can gain new insights through designs that embed daily, hourly adherence data with goal adherence.