Activity Tracking Is Broken
Why digital activity tracking fails most people.
It seems odd to say that digital activity tracking is broken. (See side note, “What is Activity Tracking.”) After all, in 2014, revenues from sports, fitness, and activity tracking devices will grow 22 percent to $2.2 billion.
However, there’s no proof that all-day digital activity tracking “works” for most people. By “works,” I mean helps people move more and lose weight over time, the main reasons people are interested in these products.
More than half of US consumers stop using their wearable activity tracker within six months of purchase. And as few as six percent of people who’ve downloaded a fitness app report using it every day. (Still, with 300 million downloads, millions of people are using fitness apps daily.)
Likewise, outside of clinical programs, there’s no hard evidence that digital activity trackers intrinsically help people become more active or lose weight over time.
The only published examples of apps, wearables or digital assistants playing a role in weight loss have been in physician-directed weight loss treatment programs. These programs also relied on nutrition classes and coaching. See also WellPoint’s Fitbit Pilot Study in this AHIP PDF.
It should be noted that any future study that can attribute weight loss or increased activity to non-clinical use of digital activity trackers will receive huge amounts of attention.
So Why Doesn’t It Work for Most People?
There are three overarching reasons:
- People use them incorrectly, thinking of them as a strategy instead of a tool. People overestimate the inherent motivation of real-time feedback.
- Digital activity trackers aren’t “smart” enough; they’re not responsive to people’s habits and activity patterns.
- The data they generate lacks individual meaning.
Looking deeper, there are five specific problems with digital activity tracking:
- People mistake activity trackers for a strategy to move more (when they’re really just a tool to measure how much someone is moving).
Wellocracy recently profiled a 2013 program led by Dr Rajani C. LaRocca that used Fitbit Zips and counseling to teach patients the importance of lifestyle change.
All nine patients increased their activity levels, as measured by a boost in daily step count. Two of the patients lost a significant amount of weight.
Looking back at the success of this program, Dr. LaRocca was asked “What’s the best way to work with a tracker?” Her response:
“The patients who did well learned that they had to plan to do something every day to meet their goals.”
A plan— a strategy— is exactly what most people need to become more active. People mistake activity trackers as a strategy for moving more. But activity trackers are just tools for measuring strategy. They let users know if their plan is working or not working.
A good strategy includes a plan for when and where physical activity will happen.
In the US, people take an average of 5,117 steps per day. Getting 10,000 steps a day is the standard suggestion for baseline fitness. Thus, many activity tracking apps and wearables include a default goal of 10,000 steps.
However, our daily activity levels are habitual. They’re also tightly bound by a net of dozens of other habits.
Simply naming a goal without considering how existing habits will shift to accommodate that goal is usually a path to failure.
For example: if the goal is 10,000 steps, but the current average is 5117 steps, when and where will the additional 4,883 steps take place?
Apps and wearables do a pretty good job of what they were designed to do — measure steps, track movement, and visualize activity. However, no current tracker can create an individualized strategy for moving more.
2. People fail to develop the habit of using activity trackers.
It seems obvious, but people need to get in the habit of using a digital tracker before they can start using it to measure their strategy for becoming more active.
However, as seen in the abandonment statistics mentioned above, most people fail to develop this habit.
Sonny Vu (founder of Misfit Wearables, makers of the excellent Shine wearable) says that wearables fail the “turnaround test criteria.” That is, if you forgot your activity tracker at home, most people wouldn’t bother to turn around to get it.
Likewise, if only 6 percent of activity app users look at them every day (as mentioned above), they’re clearly not part of people’s habits.
3. The hands-off nature of digital feedback is easy to ignore.
Hundreds of studies show that self-tracking via traditional written logs helps people to exercise more, eat better and even sleep better.
Digital trackers are easier to use than written logs. Their data isn’t perfectly accurate, but they basically work as advertised. They gather data, provide real-time feedback, and seamlessly sync user stats to the web.
However, this very seamlessness might be partly why they fail to change behavior over the long term.
Perhaps the very act of writing traditional logs contributes to their effectiveness. Studies consistently show that when people are required to reframe information by writing it out by hand, they better remember and conceptualize it.
Also, while people report that realtime feedback keeps them motivated, studies also show that they quickly learn to ignore it. For example, digital dashboards showing real-time fuel use don’t influence driving habits. Smart meters only produce very modest home energy savings.
4. Most of them lack scientifically tested motivational techniques.
A study from the National University of Ireland Galway found that “current mobile fitness apps lack overall persuasive attributes for the general public to maintain exercise motivation solely by continued use of the mobile fitness app.”
A different recent study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine also found that the vast majority of fitness and health apps lacked scientifically tested motivational techniques.
Many of the “motivational prompts” in these apps such as social sharing, buzzing during inactivity, and push notifications are easily ignored.
Again, current activity trackers aren’t very smart. If your Fitbit buzzes in the middle of a meeting, you’re not likely to jump up and go for a walk. Instead, imagine if your Fitbit had access to your smartphone’s calendar app. It could buzz to remind you to go for a walk before or after your scheduled meeting .
5. The meaning of activity data isn’t always clear to the user.
Most tracking apps beautifully visualize user data. I like how Basis visualizes data on its web app, and how Fitbit shows data in its iPhone app.
However, it’s not always clear what these visualizations mean to individual users. This is especially true in the context of setting long term goals.
Also, while the data provides a record of activity, it doesn't necessarily provide context for health, goals, or wellness. Nor does it provide intelligence or offer real-life, human-based meaning from the data.
To be useful, activity tracking has to get smarter.
In their current form, digital activity trackers (wearable or app-based) don’t work for most people.
That’s partly because people use them incorrectly. It’s also because these trackers aren’t smart enough to actively respond to people’s habits or suggest individual strategies for success.
There are opportunities for the current leaders in wearable activity digital trackers (Fitbit, JawBone, Nike, Misfit Wearables) to improve upon their market advantages.
However, the eventual iWatch will radically alter this segment.
I’m more excited by the potential for the next generation of activity tracking apps. (Perhaps built with Apple’s HealthKit or Samsung’s SAMI service.) These smarter apps will engage people with individually meaningful feedback and digital coaching.
The company that sparks the next wave of smarter activity trackers might be a current market leader. On the other hand, it might not even exist yet.
