How Fitness Tracking Tech Can Become Addictive – And Why That’s a Problem

By Dr Rachael Kent

Tracking our fitness, health and lifestyle has become an everyday habit for many of us. Whether it’s steps or calorie counting, or GPS-tracking our runs - not to mention the fastidious record-keeping of weight, height and blood pressure - we often give this data without fully realising the implications of doing so. 

Of course, personal health and fitness improvement is no bad thing, but what does become problematic is when tracking and sharing in our daily lives becomes addictive.

So why is this so? Well, crucially, it encourages us to quantify our health and fitness - we enjoy the sense of progress, of reaching personal milestones. We live in an “Insta-worthy” age and there’s nothing quite like that sense of validation when we post our idealised photos on social media. We share enticing landscapes where we have cycled, carefully adorned home yoga studios, gym selfies in our best clobber (so many gym selfies), and well-angled before and after weight-loss snapshots. We feel congratulated by likes or feedback on an Instagram post, which can inspire us to achieve more, run further, run faster, run more often, be more ‘healthy’ - even when this idea of healthiness can be dangerous and damaging. All of these personal goals provide further motivation for us to use health apps - we gorge on personal fitness statistics as much as ‘nutritious’ #foodporn filled with as many avocados and pine nuts as one can afford (oh and let’s not forget the kale!).

My research has found that long-term health tracking and sharing leads to users feeling addicted, not only to the social media content creation, but also a compulsion to closely monitor the body with this health tech. Over time, this creates pressure to post more and perform health and fitness to an unachievable standard. We feel motivated by the sense of online community which extends into the relationship we have with our devices. This reveals the uglier side of social media - the inevitable competitive comparisons exacerbated by the daily tensions of trying to understand our own bodies while we attempt to understand others. Being under the continuous surveillant gaze from others online is stressful and fraught with expectation - especially if, like many influencers, you become a ‘role model’ for others online.

How can we push back against this toxic online culture? One common suggestion is a digital detox - quitting digital platforms for a prolonged period of time. Alarmingly, though, findings from this research found that those who attempted to do so felt feelings of neglect not just towards their own bodies but their apps, social media accounts and online community. It would appear, then, that a digital detox can create a sense of abandonment and crucially, a sense that we are losing our ‘healthy body’ by doing so. 

So, what can we do to have a healthier relationship with our technology and bodies? Firstly, it’s important to try and create an objective relationship with our data; such information does not always equate to improved health. Instead of using multiple apps or devices to track health and fitness, it is possible to cut through the sheer digital noise in the health and wellness industry - start to think critically about what data is actually needed to improve personal health and fitness.

Secondly, try not to compare yourself to others. Health technology, much like social media often perpetuates a ‘one size fits all’ model of health and beauty. Problematically, this can remove recognition of individual physical (im-) possibilities, and the important medical and biological recognition that all bodies do not behave or perform in the same way. Nor do all bodies have the same capacities and will not ‘transform’ through calculated or measured intervention. In other words, don’t follow the nudging notifications from an app to run further or faster if you physically don’t feel able to. Listen to your body and your individual nutritional needs.

Lastly, moralising our relationship with health and fitness does not create a healthy relationship with our bodies. Listen to your internal dialogue and mental health; to continuously feel you ‘should be exercising more’ or ‘eating less’, only serves to make us feel worse about ourselves and our bodies. Celebrate what you can and do achieve, rather than focusing on what you didn’t do. In the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic, keeping healthy and mentally well is quite simply the most important focus for us all right now.

Dr Rachael Kent is Teaching Fellow in Digital Media and Culture (Department of Digital Humanities) at King’s College London. Her interdisciplinary research interests explore the relationship between digital media and communication, focusing specifically upon the intersections of technology and the body, health and surveillance.