Yearly millions of dollars are invested in promotional ads and social media campaigns to get people exercising in the United States. The country is dealing with obesity among its inhabitants and even though there is so much money going on in campaigns, still 43% of the Americans are not exercising enough.
A research from the University of Pennsylvania has shown that social networks help to motivate exercising more often. One group of people got divided into smaller groups with so-called ‘health buddies’ and they could keep track of each other’s progress. Whenever one of their buddies signed up for a yoga class, the others got an email notification about this. In the other main group of the experiment people got shown promotional videos that should help to keep them motivated and tell them about the importance of exercising.
The results showed that the group that was shown promotional videos only had a short term effect on their motivation, but they would lose this motivation quickly. In the groups with the health buddies participants became more motivated over time. It must be noticed that in this research the participants only had to deal with positive signals from each other. In regular social networks there are usually mixed signals, positive and negative. This could be someone taking a yoga class but also someone posting they are at McDonald’s for instance.
The power of social influence is not new and was well known before the start of the trial. For now researchers are not sure yet why social networks manage to stimulate exercising. In their new research on this they are trying to find out whether it is competition causing this or the friendly social support people get from the health buddies. Which of the two options do you think that keeps people motivated?
Sources
- http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/10/08/social-networks-can-be-powerful-exercise-motivators/93251.
- http://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/fitness/social-media-can-motivate-people-to-exercise-more/
I would personally say it is a combination of the two things you mention which keeps people motivated. Speaking for myself, I get more motivated when my friends support me by losing weight or trying to eat healthier. When my friends support me where possible and help me out in difficult situations, I get te feeling that they understand me and they want me to achieve my goal. Therefore I think friendly social support definitely matters. On the other side, I think competition is also a great factor in this case. If you see your friends doing healthy things and achieving personal goals, you automatically get a bit jealous. I think you unconsciously are going to try to be equal and even try to outperform them. By doing this, you create something to talk about with your friends, which stimulates your friendship and personal contacts. Eventually, this motivates you to keep doing it. Concluding, based on my personal experiences, I think it is a combination of two (or even more) factors, that keep people motivated.
This was a very interesting blog post to read! I would totally agree with the buddy system. I am so much more motivated to go to the gym when one of my friends goes. If I got a notification every time one of them went – I think I would actually go a LOT more… Maybe it’s a cool app idea, to add your friends on your “gym app” that lets you know once one of them is at the gym. It would finally remove all the Instagram/Twitter/Facebook posts of people letting their friends know they’re at the gym for the 100th time this week!
I also think that motivational videos are helpful to a certain extent. They get you pumped up before going to the gym but I don’t think they could actually drag me out of bed and get me into the gym on a lazy day!
Nice post! I started to work out this year and I also joined a Facebook group called “Workout Italia” or something similar. There, a community of Italians who train to be healthy was formed. Members support each other, give advice, share videos, run contests, share their healthy meals etc etc. I really believe friendly social support people get from the health buddies is actually what makes people in the community keep working out. People keep exercising because they see others are doing it , they see their pictures or videos, and from that they get their motivation. I am not a competitive person, but I know competition may drive people crazy sometimes and I do believe it plays a major role in this issue.
The “gym app” idea is a great one Bo! But I believe people who want to show others that they are cool since they are at the gym, they would still post it on their Facebook page (sorry Bo!).