Do fitness bands trick you to be more fit?

Wouldn’t it be easy to just trick yourself to hit the gym, eat better, or keep a normal sleep cycle? With the cultural norm of wearable technology and gamification, some of these day-to-day activities can be tracked and rewarded through your watch, phone, or Wii.

Webster’s Dictionary defines Gamification as “the process of adding games or game-like elements to something (such as a task) so as to encourage participation”. A common example can be seen with phone apps that offer awards and trophies, loyalty cards for point collection and increased tier levels, and wearable technology. This gamifying movement has been seen by measuring how people react to step counters in walking studies. When two groups of people are observed on a walking program, one with wearable step counters and the other group without, the counting group reports that they tracked more than normal steps. Some people in the group said that it became a competition with friends who also tracked their steps and others found it was a competition to keep up with or beat their own scores.

Gamification can make many activities, chores, and apps much more appealing to the users. With Black Friday coming up, it may be a good idea to get yourself a fitness band to see for yourself.

For more information on the article find a summary at:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1525861010002100