“When the Wearable Says ‘Time to Move’ I Move…” – A Basic View of the Self-Tracking Phenomenon

Background: Self-tracking with wearables (heart rate monitors, fitness apps etc.) becomes more important in sports but also everyday life (Gugutzer, 2016). Research so far addresses this especially from a physiological or psychological perspective. However, little is known about the phenomenon in general. Thus, the present study approaches self-tracking from a socio-scientific view and with a very open, explorative research question. The aim is to generate a more general description which can form a basis for further research. It is asked: How can the self-tracking phenomenon be described?

Method: Along with the open research question the study uses Grounded Theory for data analysis and theory generation (Strauss, 1994). Thus, the research process alternated between four phases of data collection (including N=12 narrative interviews: 7 women, 4 men; aged 20 to 62 years) and four open coding phases. Within the coding phases the data were investigated for core categories/subcategories and memos were produced and refined. The memos served to identify substantive codes and organize them within a theoretical framework. This led to a theoretical description of the self-tracking phenomenon.

Results: Four core categories were derived. First, various motives for using trackers were found, e. g. `weight loss`, `training guidance`, `self-awareness` or `objectify feelings`. Second, it can be seen that users are very differently informed about the wearables (function, data security and further use, aim setting, etc.). Third, using self-trackers seems to have very different effects, e.g., a more conscious moving behavior or an improved motivation. This is connected to the fourth category: it seems that fitness trackers have the potential to literally determine the behavior of some people while others just acknowledge the tracking data or reinterpret them.

Discussion and Conclusion: The results allow a basic description of the fitness-tracking phenomenon even though probably not all aspects were identified. Some of the results seem already very familiar. Especially motives like “weight loss” or “training guidance” are relatively well researched and the questions of data security and further use is reflected in many public discussions. But the study also included some aspects that were neglected so far. The interviews give an idea that an initially voluntarily chosen instrument for self-optimization can become a dominant tool that affects behavior (not necessarily always in a good way). Not all users seemed to still act completely self-determined. The results also question if users of self-trackers are always well informed (e.g. about the meaning of the tracking data). For instance, people relied on the suggestions of the self-trackers to walk 10,000 steps a day even though they were not able to actually judge this. Thus, while positive effects can be found it is suggested that further studies also include a more skeptical view of self-tracking.