The Nudging Effect on Tracking Activity

TL;DR

This study investigates how different nudging strategies influence individual engagement with wearable activity trackers over six months, revealing that personalized nudges can improve consistent device usage.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence on the effectiveness of various nudging techniques in enhancing wearable device adherence at the individual level.

Findings

Participants performed better with nudging strategies.

Different individuals responded uniquely to different nudges.

Nudging can potentially improve long-term device engagement.

Abstract

Wearables activity trackers are becoming widely adopted to understand individual behavior. Understanding behavior may help in self-regulation such as self-monitoring, goal-setting, self-corrective, etc.; Nevertheless, challenges exist in attaining consistent use and adoption of wearables, which hinders behavior understanding. Research has suggested that nudging strategies may change and sustain human engagement. However, it is still unknown how nudging may affect human wearing behavior on an individual level. We conducted a six-month study in which we tested several nudging techniques on the same participants. The preliminary results of our research show that participants perform better when a nudging strategy is applied. In addition, participants responded differently to different nudging techniques. Future research can focus on developing an individual-based nudging mechanism to encourage users to wear their devices consistently.