As the coronavirus pandemic has gripped the world, countries have gained a new found appreciation for the value of good physical health.  It has prompted a renewed interest in cycling, running, and various other forms of physical activity.

New research from Flinders University highlights the important role social connectivity can play in the take up of the various activity-related apps that have emerged in recent years.  The study shows that the act of sharing our activities and our progress provides many of us with the encouragement to maintain our activity levels.

“Sharing posts and receiving encouragement provides the social support many people need to stay motivated with exercise programs – and this doesn’t change across different age groups,” the researchers say.

Social support

The researchers tracked around 1,300 adults, half of whom were using a commercially available physical activity app, such as Garmin or Strava.  The analysis revealed that the apps were most effective at boosting activity among the most competitive among us, with the game-like incentives built into the apps a key factor.

“App users are motivated by both the enjoyment derived from physical activity (intrinsic motivation) and the personal value placed on the outcomes of physical activity (identified regulation), and these combined motivations result in greater engagement in physical activity,” the researchers explain.

The social components of the apps were also particularly important as they help to facilitate the kind of social support that is often so important to establishing, and then maintaining motivation.  Of course, such social functionality is not always a good thing, and the paper accepts that the comparisons they can facilitate can also have a negative effect on users.

“Engagement in comparisons was associated with lower self-efficacy and higher external regulation, and in turn, lower physical activity,” the researchers explain.

The team plan to follow up their initial experiment to explore how these fitness apps have functioned specifically during the pandemic, where physical activity was both so important and yet often so difficult.