Fitness Tracker Abandonment: The Role of User Diversity

Abstract

Rationale: Wearable activity trackers are a promising solution for motivating users to increase physical activity and, thus, prevent cardiovascular diseases. Unfortunately, many users discontinue activity tracking after just a few months, probably impeding large-scale health effects. Long-term adoption barriers (i.e., abandonment reasons) have been identified as diversified and related to former usage variables in past research. However, the antecedents of various abandonment decisions remain unclear.
Aims: To shed first light on psychological processes underlying tracker abandonment, we investigated the relationships between different abandonment reasons and user diversity variables.
Methodology: Using an online survey with 159 former users, we assessed affinity for technology interaction (ATI), trust in activity tracker measurement (TATM), experience of the dependency effect (Attig & Franke, 2019), and motivation for activity tracker usage as user diversity variables, as well as users' abandonment reasons.
Analysis: Factor analysis of abandonment reasons and subsequent correlation analyses of user diversity variables and higher-order abandonment reasons.
Results: Results revealed that ATI was positively related to abandonment due to privacy concerns or a switch to a tracking alternative. TATM was negatively related to abandonment due to data inaccuracy/perceived data uselessness. The dependency effect was positively related to abandonment due to motivation loss and loss of tracking feasibility/necessity. Finally, relationships to specific abandonment reasons could only be found for initial extrinsic motivations for tracker usage, but not intrinsic tracking motivation.
Conclusions: These findings underline the crucial role of user diversity variables regarding tracking discontinuance and, hence, of tailored solutions for tackling various usage barriers.

Full text

Institute of Psychology
Applied Geropsychology and Cognition
www.tu-chemnitz.deCBC Online Conference ∙16-18 September 2020 ∙M.Sc. Psych. Christiane Attig
Fitness Tracker Abandonment:
The Role of User Diversity
Christiane Attig1 & Thomas Franke2
1Institute of Psychology
Applied Geropsychology and Cognition
Chemnitz University of Technology
2Institute for Multimedia and Interactive Systems
Engineering Psychology and Cognitive Ergonomics
Universität zu Lübeck

2www.tu-chemnitz.deCBC Online Conference ∙16-18 September 2020 ∙M.Sc. Psych. Christiane Attig
Fitness Tracker Abandonment: The Role of User Diversity
The prototypical fitness tracker usage journey?

3www.tu-chemnitz.deCBC Online Conference ∙16-18 September 2020 ∙M.Sc. Psych. Christiane Attig
Fitness Tracker Abandonment: The Role of User Diversity
Which
usage barriers
drive fitness
tracker
abandonment
?
Are different abandonment reasons
related to
user diversity
variables?

4www.tu-chemnitz.deCBC Online Conference ∙16-18 September 2020 ∙M.Sc. Psych. Christiane Attig
Fitness Tracker Abandonment: The Role of User Diversity
•
Online questionnaire with former fitness tracker users
•
Sample: N= 159
-Mage = 32.4, SD = 11.2, Min = 18, Max = 80
-74% female
•
Assessed variables
-
Reasons for fitness tracker abandonment
(31 items, self-constructed based on literature review, Attig & Franke,
2020)
-
Initital motivation for fitness tracker use
(13 items based on Treatment-Self Regulation Questionnaire; Levesque
et al., 2007; Ryan & Connell, 1989)
-
Dependency effect
(13 items, self-constructed based on theoretical conceptualization; Attig & Franke, 2019)
-
Affinity for technology interaction
(ATI, 9 items, Franke, Attig, & Wessel, 2019)
-
Trust in fitness tracker measurement
(FOST, 5 items, Franke et al., 2015)
Method

5www.tu-chemnitz.deCBC Online Conference ∙16-18 September 2020 ∙M.Sc. Psych. Christiane Attig
Fitness Tracker Abandonment: The Role of User Diversity
•
Abandonment reasons clustered via
factor analysis into six broader
factors:
-Data inaccuracy/uselessness, privacy
concerns/switch to alternative,
design/discomfort, loss of motivation,
loss of tracking feasibility/necessity,
habit formed
Results

6www.tu-chemnitz.deCBC Online Conference ∙16-18 September 2020 ∙M.Sc. Psych. Christiane Attig
Fitness Tracker Abandonment: The Role of User Diversity
Results:
Links between initial usage motivation and abandonment reasons

7www.tu-chemnitz.deCBC Online Conference ∙16-18 September 2020 ∙M.Sc. Psych. Christiane Attig
Fitness Tracker Abandonment: The Role of User Diversity
Results:
Links between further user diversity variables and abandonment reasons

8www.tu-chemnitz.deCBC Online Conference ∙16-18 September 2020 ∙M.Sc. Psych. Christiane Attig
Fitness Tracker Abandonment: The Role of User Diversity
Implications
•The
less autonomous
participants‘ initial motivation for tracker usage, the
more relationships
to particular abandonment
reasons were found
•
Dependency effect strongly linked to loss of motivation
and moderately to loss of tracking
feasibility/necessity
-Hence, dependency effect can not only reduce tracking motivation but might also lead to abandonment due
to demotivating effects
•The
higher participants‘ ATI
, the
more likely
they discontinue tracking because of
privacy
concerns or switched to a tracking alternative
•The
higher participants‘ trust in activity tracker measurement
, the
less likely
they discontinue
tracking because of
data inaccuracy/uselessness

9www.tu-chemnitz.deCBC Online Conference ∙16-18 September 2020 ∙M.Sc. Psych. Christiane Attig
Fitness Tracker Abandonment: The Role of User Diversity
Thank you for your attention!
christiane.attig@psychologie.tu-chemnitz.de

10 www.tu-chemnitz.deCBC Online Conference ∙16-18 September 2020 ∙M.Sc. Psych. Christiane Attig
Fitness Tracker Abandonment: The Role of User Diversity
Attig, C., & Franke, T. (2018). I track, therefore I walk – Exploring the motivational costs of wearing activity trackers in actual users. International Journal
of Human-Computer Studies, 127, 211-224. doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2018.04.007
Attig, C., & Franke, T. (2020). Abandonment of personal quantification: A review and empirical study investigating reasons for wearable activity tracker
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Franke, T., Attig, C., & Wessel, D. (2019). A personal resource for technology interaction: Development and validation of the Affinity for Technology
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Franke, T., Trantow, M., Günther, M., Krems, J. F., Zott, V., & Keinath, A. (2015). Advancing electric vehicle range displays for enhanced user experience:
The relevance of trust and adaptability. In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular
Applications (pp. 249-256). New York, NY: ACM. doi:10.1145/2799250.2799283
Levesque, C. S., Williams, G. C., Elliot, D., Pickering, M. A., Bodenhamer, B., & Finley, P. J. (2007). Validating the theoretical structure of the Treatment
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Ryan, R. M., & Connell, J. P. (1989). Perceived locus of causality and internalization: Examining reasons for acting in two domains. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 57, 749-761. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.57.5.749
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