Wouldn’t it be easy to just trick yourself to hit the gym, eat better, or keep a normal sleep cycle? With the cultural norm of wearable technology and gamification, some of these day-to-day activities can be tracked and rewarded through your watch, phone, or even old systems like the Nintendo Wii or Switch.
Webster’s Dictionary defines ‘gamification’ as “the process of adding games or game-like elements to something (such as a task) so as to encourage participation”. A common example can be seen with phone games that offer awards and trophies for completing levels. Another example is our ever-growing wallet of loyalty cards for point collection and increased tier levels when we spend more.
This gamifying movement has used wearable technology like pedometers and smart watches to measure how people react to step counters in walking studies. When two groups of people are observed on a walking program, one with wearable tech and the other group without any tech, the counting group reports that they tracked more than normal steps. Some people in the group said that it became a competition with friends who also tracked their steps and others found it was a competition to keep up with or beat their own scores.
Companies have used studies like this to make activity more of a challenge and competition. With apps from fitness tech like Garmin, Apple, Samsung, Fitbit, or Oura, you can track all your body values like heart rate, sleep score, step counters, calorie counters, and stairs climbed. This massive pool of data collection made apps like Strava and Peloton popular to follow friends’ workouts, runs, or yoga sessions. Peloton took that same idea one step further and had ranking boards for friends, family, and strangers that are doing the same workout. These competition apps made it so you had online accountability partners from your neighbor to an online friend in the UK!
Gamification can make difficult things like: exercising, weight loss, and even sleeping more exciting to the users. My advice? Get a piece of wearable tech to start the journey to exercise and health. Get it, track it, and have fun being healthy!
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Happy gamifying health!
Dr. Cole Maranger