Zheng Xia, Li Wenbo
School of Communication and Journalism, the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA.
Digit Health. 2024 Jul 21;10:20552076241266367. doi: 10.1177/20552076241266367. eCollection 2024 Jan-Dec.
Fitness technologies, such as smartphone applications and wearable tracking devices, have gained widespread popularity. This study had two main objectives: 1) to examine whether fitness technology use is associated with increased physical activity (PA) levels and 2) to investigate whether communication behaviors on social media mediated the association between fitness technology use and PA.
Data were from the U.S. Health Information National Trends Survey 2022 ( = 6,252, weighted = 258,418,467). Weighted linear regressions were conducted to examine the associations between fitness technology usage, physical activities, and communication behaviors on social media. Mediations were tested using PROCESS macro, a path-analysis based tool.
Controlling for demographic and other known influences on PA, the findings revealed that users of fitness technology reported higher levels of both moderate PA ( = .41, < 0.001) and strength training ( = .29, < 0.001). Additionally, communication behaviors (i.e., sharing personal health information on social media and watching health-related videos on social media) mediated the relationship between fitness technology use and frequencies of strength training.
The results underscored the potential of fitness technologies in enhancing PA levels through promoting communication behaviors on social media.
健身技术，如智能手机应用程序和可穿戴追踪设备，已广泛普及。本研究有两个主要目的：1）研究使用健身技术是否与身体活动（PA）水平的提高相关；2）调查社交媒体上的交流行为是否介导了健身技术使用与PA之间的关联。
数据来自2022年美国健康信息国家趋势调查（n = 6252，加权n = 258418467）。进行加权线性回归以研究健身技术使用、身体活动和社交媒体上的交流行为之间的关联。使用基于路径分析的工具PROCESS宏测试中介效应。
在控制了人口统计学因素和其他已知的对PA有影响的因素后，研究结果显示，健身技术的使用者报告的中度PA水平（β = 0.41，p < 0.001）和力量训练水平（β = 0.29，p < 0.001）都更高。此外，交流行为（即在社交媒体上分享个人健康信息和观看与健康相关的视频）介导了健身技术使用与力量训练频率之间的关系。
研究结果强调了健身技术通过促进社交媒体上的交流行为来提高PA水平的潜力。
