Health Wearables, Gamification, and Healthful Activity

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Behavioral Science
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• Health wearables and gamification show potential for increasing physical activity.
• Existing research on gamification's benefits is inconclusive, with concerns about competition favoring active users over sedentary ones.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of Fitbit leaderboards on daily step count.
• To analyze the heterogeneous effects of leaderboards on users with different baseline activity levels.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a unique dataset of Fitbit wearable users.
• Compared daily step counts of users participating in Fitbit leaderboards versus a control group.
• Analyzed the differential impact of leaderboards based on users' pre-adoption activity levels.

Main Results:

• Overall, Fitbit leaderboards increased daily physical activity by 370 steps (3.5%).
• Sedentary users significantly increased daily steps by 1,300 (15% relative increase).
• Highly active users decreased daily steps by 630 (5% relative decrease).

Conclusions:

• Fitbit leaderboards have a heterogeneous effect, significantly benefiting sedentary individuals while potentially harming highly active ones.
• Sedentary users gain from leaderboards regardless of rank, possibly due to non-competitive dynamics.
• Highly active users require high rankings on large leaderboards to see benefits, suggesting competition dynamics are key for this group.