While this shouldn’t come as a surprise, a fitness tracker app has been found to not only monitor your fitness level, but to cause you to work harder at your exercise. In a recent study published in the bmj, researchers found that people who used a fitness app increased their everyday activity by about 1235 steps and their moderate to vigorous activity by 48.5 minutes a week.
This makes intuitive sense. If I walk everyday, but notice that I get to 8000 steps, I may feel internally incentivized to get to 10,000 steps. Without a step monitor, I won’t know that I’ve only gotten to 8000 and I won’t feel that pull to continue and to push myself further.
Of course, there are other ways to incentivize yourself and to reach your goals, many of which are outlined in this CNN article. But the research on fitness trackers is certainly worth exploring further.
