Wearable activity trackers usage among university students

Abstract

In spite of the fact that physical activity is inevitable in sustaining health, there are more people in the world who do not take it into account than who do. A growing number of young adults have been using wearable activity trackers, particularly step counts, to keep an eye on their health in the past few years. In an online survey university students were interviewed as a focus group. All members were current wearable activity trackers. Data was analyzed with SPSS 22 version. Beside descriptive statistics we applied Pearson's Khi square test (χ2) and independent samples test, as well. We considered the results of statistical tests significant in case of p < 0.05. The wearable devices that participants used were wristbands (65.1%, n=95) and smartwatches (34.9 %, n=51). Their number one purpose was to measure step counts (93.2%, n=136) and sleep patterns (63.7 %, n=93) with the devices. The highest number of people answered to the question of what is the main purpose of using these devices that they monitored daily physical activity with it (56.2 % n=82). The majority of the conveners do regular sports and in general exercise on 3.84 days for 30 minutes (Mode=3.0, Median=4.0, SD=1.78). Only 3.4 % of the (n=19) are not engaged in any sort of physical exercise. A significant discrepancy could be observed in the number of days spent doing sports between wearable activity tracker users and non-users in favour of users (users: Mean=4.26 SD=1.83; non user: Mean=3.69 SD=1.74; t=3.279, p < 0.01). 70.6 % of smart watch wearers claimed that using the device took positive effects on their physical activity and only 29.4 % stated that their habits were not altered by the trackers. 42.1 % of those wearing wristband trackers increased their physical activity as a result of wearing the gadget, whereas 57.9 % of them were not affected in their physical activity (χ2=10.839, df=2, p < 0.05). The publication is supported by the EFOP-3.6.1-16-2016-00022 project. The project is co-financed by the European Union and the European Social Fund.