Persuasive Technology in Reducing Prolonged Sedentary Behavior at Work: A Systematic Review

TL;DR

This systematic review examines how persuasive technology, especially reminders, is used to reduce prolonged sedentary behavior at work, highlighting that reminders alone are ineffective but combined with education show promise.

Contribution

The paper systematically analyzes the application of persuasive system design principles in interventions targeting sedentary behavior reduction at work.

Findings

Reminders are the most common PSD principle used.

Hourly PC reminders alone do not significantly reduce sedentary behavior.

Combining reminders with education or information sessions shows potential effectiveness.

Abstract

Prolonged sedentary behavior is prevalent among office workers and has been found to be detrimental to health. Preventing and reducing prolonged sedentary behavior require interventions, and persuasive technology is expected to make a contribution in this domain. In this paper, we use the framework of persuasive system design (PSD) principles to investigate the utilization and effectiveness of persuasive technology in intervention studies at reducing sedentary behavior at work. This systematic review reveals that reminders are the most frequently used PSD principle. The analysis on reminders shows that hourly PC reminders alone have no significant effect on reducing sedentary behavior at work, while coupling with education or other informative session seems to be promising. Details of deployed persuasive technology with behavioral theories and user experience evaluation are expected to be reported explicitly in the future intervention studies.