DON’T HURT ME… NO MORE? AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON THE POSITIVE AND ADVERSE MOTIVATIONAL EFFECTS IN FITNESS APPS

Lacking regular physical activity is a prevailing issue of our society causing high costs in health care, productivity losses, and million deaths. To counteract this problem, fitness apps are increasingly considered as a means to motivate individuals towards more physical activity. However, many people discontinue their fitness app use. User stories point to a ‘darker side’ of fitness apps indicating adverse effects on users’ competence feelings leading to fitness app discontinuance. To better understand the positive and detrimental motivational effects, this paper draws on self-determination theory and motivational affordances explicating how self-monitoring, rewards, and social recognition affordances of fitness apps affect competence needs and fitness app continuance decisions in consequence. Empirical validation with 283 fitness app user reveals the positive and negative motivational effects. Thereby, this study contributes to research with a motivation-based explanation of fitness app continuance, explicates the ‘darker side’ of fitness apps, and explains the need-relevant characteristics of motivational affordances. The results guide the application and tailoring of motivational affordances in fitness apps

Activity Tracking Affordances: Identification and Instrument Development

Activity tracking apps –such as Fitbit or Nike+ Running– are positioned to enhance people’s motivation towards physical activity and healthy behavior. Though various ‘motivational’ features are incorporated, the effectiveness of these apps is often mixed raising concerns about the ‘one-size-fits-all‘ applicability. To get a better understanding about the nature of using activity tracking apps, this paper employs the lens of affordances and identifies eight particular salient affordances in activity tracking: Self-Monitoring, Performance Analysis, Exercise Guidance, Rewards, Social Comparison, Watching Others, Social Recognition, and Self-Presentation. Moreover, this study develops a corresponding measurement instrument evaluated using q-sort methodology. Avenues for future research are highlighted involving the set of affordances and their instruments and practical implications are given

Elderly People in eHealth: Who are they?

AbstracteHealth initiatives are constantly evolving, supporting consumers to take active control of their health and well-being through access to health information via the Internet. Although particularly elderly people could benefit from eHealth, they often pose resistance and anxiety towards new technologies. Since modern technologies become increasingly complex, elderly's mental models on how technology works might be not supported. Today's technologies are often designed without paying attention to the circumstances of elderly people, thereby limiting the technologies’ intended effectiveness. As such it becomes apparent to understand who these ‘elderly people’ actually are and how individual characteristics shape elderly's perceptions and behavior in using eHealth. Consequently, we seek to investigate how broad personality traits (i.e. the ‘big five’) affect perceptions of elderly of being generally able to use the Internet (i.e. self-efficacy) in order to use the Internet for health-related purposes. By conducting a quantitative study among elderly people, we aim to contribute to the knowledge on relationships between personality traits and self-efficacy. We further expect to provide new insights on elderly's personality in order to design effective systems for the growing segment of older adults

Mature Adults’ Use of Digital Health Services The Role of Prior Computer Experience on eHealth Adoption

In the light of aging societies in developed economies, the use of digital health services by mature adults becomes an ever more important issue. Although multiple offerings exist, the widespread use of these solutions is still considerably low. To the current date, research has not yet a good understanding on the specific behavior of senior citizens when it comes to adoption and use of eHealth services. Our research addresses this issue by analyzing the effect previous work experience with Information Technology (IT) has on the eHealth use of retired citizens. Using a paper based questionnaire, 132 respondents provided information on their previous work exposure to IT, their computer self-efficacy, computer anxiety, and use of digital health services. Our findings underline the strong impact previous work with IT has on eHealth use regardless how long the respondent is already retired. We also found that outcome expectations are a strong mediator on the relationship between self-efficacy and the use of digital health services. This implies that seniors feel that they have all capabilities to use digital health services but only if they see a need to do so

How Do IT-related Traits Drive the Internet Use of Mature Adults? The Interplay of Curiosity and Control

It can frequently be observed that mature adults use the Internet differently as younger members of society. We propose a model based on IT-related traits to conceptualize the Internet use behavior of mature adults, specifically focusing on curiosity- and control-related traits. We empirically tested our model by investigating the duration and intensity of mature adults’ Internet use. The results reveal that traits reflecting -˜curiosity’ (Personal Innovativeness in IT and Computer Playfulness) explain variations in the duration of Internet use, while traits reflecting -˜control’ (Computer Self-Efficacy and Computer Anxiety) predict the intensity to which mature adults make use of the Internet. Our paper thereby contributes to research on post-acceptance variations and on individual differences in IT use

Older Adults’ Use of Online Health Information – Do They Even Try?

Online health information holds the potential to support older adults in taking active control of their health and well-being. Yet, despite generally using the Internet, many seniors do not make use of health information provided via the Internet. Understanding why older Internet users do not use online health information is consequently of high importance. Drawing on post-adoption research, a model is developed and empirically validated that examines how the interplay of health need, health knowledge, exploratory IT behavior and benefit expectations jointly accounts for seniors’ online health information use. This research contributes to the literature by focusing explicitly on older adults and by providing a better understanding how health need and health knowledge enable and inhibit online health information use

Technology-Mediated Health Activities: An Exploratory Study on Older Adults

This research aims to investigate how older adults make use of technologies for health-related activities. We conceptualize technology-mediated health activities as two distinct behaviors, namely ‘Health Decision Support’ and ‘Health Management’. Drawing on prior research at the intersection of older adults’ health IT acceptance, we explore how technology-related beliefs, individual differences in IT, and health-related factors jointly determine these two activities. Based on an empirical study among adults aged 60 and above, our study contributes to research on consumer health IT by 1) exploring a target group that might benefit most from eHealth, 2) by revealing that these eHealth behaviors are differently determined, and 3) by re-examining the important roles health related factors play in eHealth acceptance

On the Fit in Fitness Apps: Studying the Interaction of Motivational Affordances and Users’ Goal Orientations in Affecting the Benefits Gained

Lacking regular physical activity is a pertaining problem in most western societies. Fitness apps are positioned to address this issue by offering motivational affordances to the user, which aim to enhance motivation and increase physical activity: self-monitoring, rewards, and social comparison. Yet research provides inconclusive results about their effectiveness. For clarification, this paper draws upon Achievement Goal Theory and theorizes how and why motivational affordances vary in dependence of users’ motivation-relevant goals in supporting motivation and physical activity. Empirical validation among 283 fitness app users generally supports that motivational affordances need to be congruent with users’ underlying goal orientations to achieve the benefits. As such, this paper contributes to fitness app research by resolving prior inconsistencies, offers a theorizing on motivational affordances and individual motivation-relevant differences, and aids practice in designing fitness apps

Elderly People in eHealth: Investigating Internet Self-Efficacy and the Role of Occupational Internet Usage

eHealth initiatives are constantly evolving, supporting consumers to take active control of their health and well-being through access to health information and through communication with experts and peers via the internet. Although particularly elderly people could benefit from eHealth, they often feel unable to use the internet. Drawing on social cognitive theory, we seek to understand how internet self-efficacy affects the usage of eHealth among elderly people. As many elderly people nowadays are required to use the internet in their workplaces, we aim to explore the impact of prior occupational internet usage on self-efficacy. By conducting a representative study on 2,000 participants in the age of 55 to 75 in Germany, we seek to contribute to the knowledge on eHealth adoption and social inclusion of elderly people, as well as on prior occupational internet usage as a novel determinant of internet self-efficacy

If You Are Happy and DON\u27T Know IT: Continuance? Analyzing Emotion Carry-Over Effects in Activity Tracking Continuance Decisions

Activity tracking devices and apps are positioned to enhance healthy behavior. Albeit positive outcomes are widely anticipated, many users abandon their devices and apps after short time which raises concerns about their effectiveness. Studies indicate that self-tracking can provoke –positive but particularly negative– emotions with which individuals have to cope. Though studying emotions in IS usage is gaining attention, the role of system-unrelated emotions has been largely neglected yet has been shown to play an important role in human behavior. To address this gap, this study theorizes how system-unrelated emotions ‘carry-over’ into activity tracking continuance decisions. Results of an experimental survey largely support the ‘carry-over’ effect in continuance decisions – particularly for less experienced users. Our study thereby contributes to the growing self-tracking literature but also to research on emotions in IS usage by highlighting the powerful role of system-unrelated emotions