Spotswood Fiona, Shankar Avi, Piwek Lukasz
School of Management, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK.
Institute for Policy Research (IPR), Marketing, Business & Society, Centre for Business, Organisations and Society (CBOS), University of Bath, Bath, UK.
Sociol Health Illn. 2020 May;42(4):772-788. doi: 10.1111/1467-9566.13057. Epub 2020 Feb 12.
Emerging research explores the role of self-tracking in supporting healthy behaviour. Self-tracking comprises a number of interrelated practices; some individual some communal. In this article, we focus on practices that enable interaction between self-trackers through data sharing and communication around personal data. For public health, communal self-tracking has been explored for the additional benefits it provides in addition to self-knowledge. However, under-explored is the emotional entanglement of self-tracking and tracked activities, or the role of practitioners in the dynamic evolution of tracked practices. Qualitative, mixed methods data were collected from leisure-time runners in the SW England who self-track using social fitness app 'Strava', and were interpreted through the lens of practice theory. We find that communal self-tracking affords the active shaping of the emotion and purpose of running. This 'teleoaffective shaping' allows practitioners to negotiate and reconstitute appealing meanings associated with running to protect their practice loyalty. We identify three mechanisms for teleoaffective shaping afforded by Strava: labelling, reward and materialising effort. Findings advance our understanding of how social fitness apps work to retain practitioners of physically active leisure practices. Future research should further explore the multiple ways that associations with tracked physical activity evolve through entanglement with self-tracking practices.
新兴研究探讨了自我追踪在支持健康行为方面的作用。自我追踪包括一系列相互关联的实践；有些是个人的，有些是公共的。在本文中，我们关注的是通过围绕个人数据的数据共享和交流，使自我追踪者之间能够进行互动的实践。对于公共卫生而言，除了自我认知之外，公共自我追踪所带来的额外益处也已得到探讨。然而，自我追踪与被追踪活动之间的情感纠葛，或者从业者在被追踪实践的动态演变中的作用，却鲜有研究。我们从英格兰西南部使用社交健身应用程序“Strava”进行自我追踪的休闲跑步者那里收集了定性和混合方法数据，并通过实践理论的视角进行了解读。我们发现，公共自我追踪能够积极塑造跑步的情感和目的。这种“目的情感塑造”使从业者能够协商并重新构建与跑步相关的有吸引力的意义，以保护他们对跑步的忠诚度。我们确定了Strava提供的目的情感塑造的三种机制：标记、奖励和努力的具象化。研究结果增进了我们对社交健身应用程序如何留住从事体育休闲活动的从业者的理解。未来的研究应进一步探索与被追踪的体育活动的关联如何通过与自我追踪实践的纠葛而演变的多种方式。
