Beyond Technical Motives: Perceived User Behavior in Abandoning Wearable Health & Wellness Trackers

TL;DR

This study investigates behavioral factors influencing the abandonment of wearable health trackers, analyzing online sales posts to identify user motives, habits, and reasons for discontinuing use, highlighting patterns beyond technical issues.

Contribution

It provides new insights into user behavioral patterns and motives for wearable abandonment based on analysis of online sales posts, focusing on lifestyle and habit factors.

Findings

Identified behavioral patterns linked to wearable abandonment

Revealed motives beyond technical limitations

Highlighted the timeframe before users abandon wearables

Abstract

Health trackers are widely adopted to support individuals with daily health and wellness activity tracking. They can help increase steps taken, enhance sleeping pattern, improve healthy diet, and promote the overall health. Despite the growth in wearable adoption, their real-life use is still questionable. While some users derive long-term values from their trackers, others face barriers to integrate it into their daily routine. Studies have analysed technical aspects of these barriers. In this paper, we analyse the behavioural factors of discouragement and wearable abandonment strictly tied to user habits and lifestyle circumstances. A data analysis was conducted on 8 of the highly rated wearables for 2017. The analysis collected sale posts on Kijiji and Gumtree, the second sales online retailers for both the Italian and UK market, respectively. We extracted insights from the posts about user motives, highlighted technology condition and limitations, and timeframe before the abandonment. The findings revealed certain user behavioural patterns when abandoning their wearables. In addition, analysing the posts showed other motives for the posts and not strictly related to wearable abandonment.