TY - GEN
T1 - Appropriation of Digital Tracking Tools in an Online Weight Loss Community
T2 - 2021 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference: Nowhere and Everywhere, DIS 2021
AU - Ryan, Kathleen
AU - Linehan, Conor
AU - Dockray, Samantha
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Owner/Author.
PY - 2021/6/28
Y1 - 2021/6/28
N2 - Online health communities provide a space where people seek out and provide support for weight loss activities, including tracking. Our study examined the experiences of members of an online community (r/loseit on Reddit.com) who posted about using digital tracking tools for weight loss. A targeted search garnered 379 public posts, which were analyzed using Thematic Analysis. Four themes reflected members' individual and shared experiences: Tracking as gaining insight, Tracking as a vehicle of control, Confronting challenges in sustaining tracking and Teaching and learning the skills of tracking. We highlight complex socio-technical processes that members developed around tracking tools and discuss how knowledge of these appropriations can be applied to designing future user-centered tracking tools to support weight loss. We discuss how the social context of an online health community can shape both the usage of tracking tools and self-regulatory processes for health behaviour change.
AB - Online health communities provide a space where people seek out and provide support for weight loss activities, including tracking. Our study examined the experiences of members of an online community (r/loseit on Reddit.com) who posted about using digital tracking tools for weight loss. A targeted search garnered 379 public posts, which were analyzed using Thematic Analysis. Four themes reflected members' individual and shared experiences: Tracking as gaining insight, Tracking as a vehicle of control, Confronting challenges in sustaining tracking and Teaching and learning the skills of tracking. We highlight complex socio-technical processes that members developed around tracking tools and discuss how knowledge of these appropriations can be applied to designing future user-centered tracking tools to support weight loss. We discuss how the social context of an online health community can shape both the usage of tracking tools and self-regulatory processes for health behaviour change.
KW - Personal Data/Tracking
KW - Qualitative Methods
KW - Social Media/Online Communities
KW - Weight loss
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85110164951
U2 - 10.1145/3461778.3462092
DO - 10.1145/3461778.3462092
M3 - Conference proceeding
AN - SCOPUS:85110164951
T3 - DIS 2021 - Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference: Nowhere and Everywhere
SP - 999
EP - 1014
BT - DIS 2021 - Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference
PB - Association for Computing Machinery, Inc
Y2 - 28 June 2021 through 2 July 2021
ER -