UNIVERSITY OF GHENT

FACULTY POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

Dissertation

NILS DE JONGHE

THESIS COMMUNICATION SCIENCES

Specialization MEDIA, SOCIETY AND POLICY

PROMOTOR: (PROF.) DR. JAN VAN LOOY

SECOND READER: (PROF.) DR. JAN DECOCK

ACADEMIC YEAR 2012 – 2013

LEVEL UP – GRINDING TOWARDS

BETTER MOTIVATING GAMIFIED

FITNESS APPLICATIONS

Word count: 21.212

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Content

Abstract .....................................................................................................................................................4

Introduction ...............................................................................................................................................5

What is gamification? ..............................................................................................................................5

Examples of gamification .........................................................................................................................5

Aspects of gamification ...............................................................................................................................6

Gamification in academia ................................................................................................................................9

Gamification and motivation ..................................................................................................................... 11

Nike+ .................................................................................................................................................... 11

Autonomy............................................................................................................................................. 14

Competency.......................................................................................................................................... 16

Relatedness .......................................................................................................................................... 17

Research question .................................................................................................................................... 17

Hypotheses ........................................................................................................................................... 18

Methodology ............................................................................................................................................ 19

Age groups............................................................................................................................................ 19

Geographic spread ................................................................................................................................ 19

Interview duration................................................................................................................................. 19

Question set ......................................................................................................................................... 20

Secondary sources................................................................................................................................. 21

Data analysis ......................................................................................................................................... 18

Report...................................................................................................................................................... 22

Participants:.......................................................................................................................................... 22

Nike+ participants ................................................................................................................................. 23

Application usage ..................................................................................................................................... 25

Types of sports logged .............................................................................................................................. 26

Behavioral Change .................................................................................................................................... 28

Profile deletion ..................................................................................................................................... 31

Points and levels ................................................................................................................................... 34

Leaderboards ........................................................................................................................................ 39

Social ....................................................................................................................................................... 43

Props .................................................................................................................................................... 43

Women and Fitocracy............................................................................................................................ 46

Cheating ............................................................................................................................................... 48

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Future of gamification ............................................................................................................................... 54

Current problems .................................................................................................................................. 50

Future applications ................................................................................................................................... 54

Conclusion................................................................................................................................................ 56

Citations: ..................................................................................................................................................... 61

Addendum:………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………54

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Level Up – Grinding Towards Better Motivating Gamified Fitness Applications

Abstract

Gamification is a current trend where game elements are applied to otherwise non-game environments.

In recent years we have seen this trend being applied to various aspects of modern day life. People sign

in at their favorite coffee shop using Foursquare and earn points and badges in the process to give a

popular example. Gamification is often used to get people to do stuff, but how effective is it in

accomplishing that goal? In this thesis we have studied the implementation of gamification in Nike+ and

Fitocracy. Users of these applications log their runs, workouts or other sports activity upon which they

receive the aforementioned rewards. In this explorative qualitative study we performed depth-interviews

and examine how motivating or demotivating these apps can be and try to apply some of the feedback

received in these talks in order to propose several ways for how the effectiveness of these services could

be increased. Special attention was also paid to the social aspect of these platforms and how users

interact with one another on these services. We have specifically selected some lead users with very

strong opinions on the selected aspects of these platforms. Our research suggests there is a need for

diversified gamified platforms that go beyond arbitrary points and badges. Social elements in particular

are required to provide a human touch to balance the cold analytical aspects of gamification.

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1. Introduction

According to 2011s Gartner hype cycle report for emerging technologies, the trend of gamification was

at the time of writing 2 to 5 years away from mainstream adoption (Fenn. J, & LeHong H., 2011).

Whether by now the practice of gamification has hit the mainstream or not is arguable, but the fact

remains a lot of businesses, schools and medical professionals are currently looking into how to harness

the technique to suit their needs. Experts expect this will inevitably have a mix of both positive and

negative results (Anderson, J., & Rainie, L. (2012). It is also steadily being used in educative settings

(Cronk, 2012).

1.1 What is gamification?

Based on his research, Deterding (2011) defines gamification as the use of game design-elements in a

non-game contexts. Gartner’s definition of the term mostly overlaps, stating "Gamification is the use of

game mechanics in non-entertainment environments”, but goes on to add its goal is “…to change user

behavior, drive engagement and encourage higher levels.” It is important to note that gamification is not

the same as the “serious games” phenomenon as “This term typically refers to video games that are used

not for entertainment but as simulations in the fields of emergency training, education, science,

healthcare and the military” (Fenn. J, & LeHong H., 2011). Gamification can also be regarded as an

emerging persuasive technology, as discussed by Fogg (2002).

1.2 Examples of gamification

While lots of companies and other institutions are currently looking at how they can implement

gamification, in recent years there have been quite a few successful implementations. Google’s

Dodgeball, a location based social networking service did not catch on and was discontinued in 2009.

From its ashes however rose Foursquare, a new company which provided roughly the exact same

functionality: users could log places they visited and find out where there friends currently are or went.

Unlike Dodgeball Foursquare also added game elements in the mix. Users who visited a place the most

were designated as “mayors” of those places and by signing in users would also collect points and

badges based on things like the frequency of visiting places and types.

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This mirrored a trend also seen in video games themselves. While awards and earning points had been

commonplace almost since their inception, platforms such as Xbox Live and Steam started aggregating

these points and awards by launching system wide achievement systems. In Microsoft’s case, rather

than tracking performance within one game, players’ accomplishments over all games all started adding

up towards one number. This soon caught on and became a staple for later gamification efforts, as well

as leaderboards.

2. Aspects of gamification

While there is a huge variety in how gamification is currently applied we can identify some common

recurring elements. Most gamified platform out there to today employ three simple basics: points,

badges and leaderboards and derivations thereof.

Points are generally awarded for every and any task completed on the platform and sometimes count

towards a whole. A familiar concept from gaming, experience points are used to level up and sometimes

add extra functionality upon achieving a certain level. While such a system is frequent, sometimes

points will be completely separate entities spanning over multiple sub-activities found in a game or

gamified application. Often times they can be completely disconnected from each other, for example the

amount of likes you get for sharing an activity on your feed may not necessarily be reflected in the total

point count, but will involve a separate counter.

Badges, Achievements or Quests will often award extra points, but not necessarily. They are most

often earned by completing a very specific goal and can serve towards slight social engineering. Most

achievements are laid out as such that they guide players towards every aspect of a game. Rather than

serving sometimes boring tutorials that teach you how to play a game, developers will goad beginning

players to try things they otherwise might not have tried. Furthermore they serve a purpose for hardened

players to try their best and attain some of the more harder ones as a means of showing off their mastery

of the system and the fruits of their dedication towards a game.

In recent years achievements have also become a reliable way for developers of gauging user feedback.

Because they are often tied to progression goals, the software makers can easily see what percentage of

players have completed specific goals and can gain valuable knowledge about player demographics that

might help them in the development of future products.

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Lastly, leaderboards will measure certain aspects of a game, such as time trials or high scores and will

show only the highest score a player has earned and will often show how a player measures up

compared to the rest of the world. In cases like the health promoting fitness applications we are going to

analyze, these can be things like highest points earned during a single workout session or fastest

runtimes. A recent study by (Gerling e.a., 2013) suggests leaderboards can be a double-edged blade.

Depending on the player types they identified Conqueror type players will relish the fact that they reach

the top of leaderboards, while for other such as the Socializer type can get frustrated when these

competitive elements are stressed too much. For players at the bottom end of the leaderboards, the

perceived barrier to successfully climb higher could work discouraging.

Figure 1:. List of common game elements , retrieved from (Gerling, 2013).

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As outlined in the above figure, gamification isn’t just about points, badges and leaderboards. Detractors

of the usefulness of gamification efforts that just apply these three elements to an existing product have

dubbed this practice “pointsification” (Robertson, 2010) and note there is a need for more meaningful

gamification (Nicholson 2012,a). Zichermann (2011) adds to this critique by saying “game are good,

points are good, but points =/= games”. These exclamations are further echoed by journalist Ian Bogost

(2010), who states the following about the social games gamification draws from: “Many of today's

console games exert a time crush. They demand tens or even hundreds of hours of attention to complete,

some or most of which often feels empty. In that respect, one could argue that many games seem to

destroy time….But social games do something even more violent: they also destroy the time we spend

away from them... through obligation, worry, and dread over missed opportunities.”

Another advocate for more meaningful gamification is Jane McGonigal, a multi-disciplinary game-

researcher and designer who is more optimistic about gamification’s potential. Among other things

McGonigal is notable for creating one of the first successful Alternate Reality Game Campaigns

ilovebees, a viral marketing campaign for Halo 2. She has since written multiple publications on

gamification and has developed her own gamified platform. SuperBetter which uses game elements in

order to help people reach a goal of their choosing. For example should they wish to quit smoking that

user can earn daily points simply by not touching any cigarettes or reporting other healthy behavior to

the application.

ARGs are a great example of gamified applications that don’t simply rely on points, leaders and badges.

Instead they opt to employ other elements commonly found in games in order to create an enrapturing

experience for players to get lost in. These ARGs use game elements to tell a story that is based upon a

non-game setting, much like early pen and paper Role Playing Games. ARGs are often employed in

viral marketing campaigns, and frequently engage crowds of hardcore enthusiasts to dig for clues to

advance the ARG’s story. An example of this was the viral media campaign that preceded the release of

The Dark Knight, which led its participants throughout a series of sites supposedly hacked by Batman’s

enemy, The Joker. ARGs usually draw the most fervent fans of a franchise as they are most likely to

want to jump through the many challenging hoops these games utilize.

In the next segment we will delve deeper into the underlying mechanics that increase the odds of

creating a meaningful gamified platform by discussing how gamification relates to other academic

fields.

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3. Gamification in academia

Gamification has links with various academic fields. The data logging aspect in particular ties into

many different undertakings. As both the amount of data as well as the interest and need to make sense

of it grows, many academics are seeing how they can exploit the monitoring aspect of gamification.

Today, the term big data is a buzzword that is steadily gaining traction as both the public and

professional sector seek to do find truths hidden in the vast amount of data they collect.

Diverse interest groups are applying gamification techniques for two big reasons. As discussed earlier,

gamification applications often reward their users with a spectrum of rewards based on information they

decide to share. The playful nature and the reward mechanisms involved could give users an extra push

to give out information they might not otherwise share. Secondly, the points and achievements act as

filters for that information and give the application owner a built-in way of effectively filtering this

information without the need for a lot for extra analytic tools.

Dr. Detective, for instance, is an application that uses IBM’s Watson supercomputer technology along

with crowdfunding and gamified elements to help doctors with the standardization of medical annotation

(Dumitrache, e.a. 2013). Others are trying to use gamification in education efforts. Abigail Rondot

(2013) made an application to make people aware of environmental issues such as global warming and

resource management. In another recent study (Kato, 2013) researchers developed a game geared

towards education diabetes sufferers.

On a broader scale, a meta-analysis of 70+ studies in which games (not necessarily gamification) were

used to influence health behavior concludes there is currently a lack of high quality research in this

area. The efficacy of games on health behavior was neither confirmed or refuted, although it notes that

games do show areas of effectiveness, the aforementioned lack of quality research leads to limited

evidence for these claims (Portnoy, 2008).

3.1 Persuasive technology

Gamification is often described as a persuasive technology. It can be seen as [….an interactive product

designed to change attitudes or behaviors or both by making a desired outcome easier to achieve (Fogg,

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2003, p.32). Fogg outlines seven types of persuasive tools and three of them highly match with the

concept of gamification:, self-monitoring, surveillance, and conditioning.

The self-monitoring aspect persuasive technology Fogg discusses here also ties into the Quantified

Self, in which users use a variety of sensors and devices to collect and interpret data about their day to

day lives. Physical and mental states for instance can be correlated to metrics collected by these

wearable computing devices. For instance someone’s mood can be compared to how their blood

pressure levels were throughout the day, or aspects like how many miles they have walked that day.

Both the Fitocracy and Nike+ applications we will be investigating are examples of this trend and the

gamified nature of the platform probably makes this data collection more enjoyable for the end user.

Surveillance highlights one of the potentially less pleasant aspects of the technology for some people as

much of the data collected is either public or subject to privacy settings which can be rather opaque and

confusing. Power dynamics can also be affected by this type of data. However, the surveillance aspect of

persuasive tech in gamification, Fogg says is essential in the social pressure mechanism of persuasion.

Applied to gamification, things like leaderboards and badges alert other users of your performance.

Conditioning dates back to the early history of behaviorism. Operant conditioning in particular is a

well-investigated behavior modification technique (Skinner, 1938) based on reinforcement and its

involvement in the modification of animal behavior. In operant conditioning the animal is consistently

rewarded upon display of a desirable behavior and over time learns to show this behavior without the

reinforcing stimulus. On the flipside, punishment is often used to discourage unfavorable behavior.

This concept ties into the reward mechanisms these gamified platforms use. To illustrate, a set of

achievements often rewards an action the first time you do a specific action, followed by the fifth time

you perform said option and ultimately the 15th time, steadily decreasing the reward schedule until the

performance of said action is ingrained. A study looking at the brain’s pleasure control centers showed

that when learning the mechanics of a game the brain rewarded players with a dopamine release (Koep,

1998).

Other research done on the more long-term effects of reward mechanisms includes Appley’s hedonic

treadmill concept; another behavioral psychological mechanism that states a person’s happiness has a

tendency to reset to a relatively constant level, regardless of good or bad things happening. This suggests

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that the long term effects of these rewards may be limited in time as drastic changes in happiness tend to

level off at some point in time regardless of reward or punishment.

4. Gamification and motivation

Persuasive technology and motivation are also highly intertwined with each other. According to Ryan

and Deci (2000), to be motivated means to be moved to do something. In this academic thesis we will be

applying the concepts from the field persuasive technology and motivational theories to gamified

applications designed to promote better health. The applications we have chosen for this are Fitocracy

and Nike+ and we have selected ten proficient users of these applications for an exploratory qualitative

study based on interviews.

Fitocracy was created in February of 2011, by Richard Talens and Brian Wang, two self-labeled nerds

who found success in exercising by applying game mechanisms to their workouts. Since then the

platform has grown to accommodate 1.000.000 members making it one of the fastest growing and most

successful fitness applications. The service started as an invite-only site at first, but has since also been

made available as an iPhone application and more recently the application was also made available for

Android devices. Apart from the points, badges and leaderboards being a core feature of the site it also

has a substantial focus on social elements with many user created special interest groups for users to

post in. Fitocracy also has a premium membership feature called Fitocracy Hero, which serves as an

early access for added functionality and has exclusive features such as private messaging and more

extensive weekly analytics.

Nike+

The Nike+ running app was released on iPod devices in September 2010. It featured a small transmitting

device to be attached to a shoe, which then logged your running speed, distance and other related

metrics. Much like Fitocracy it has since been introduced in other forms and on other platforms such as

the Nike Fuelband, an iPhone app and a Nike+ Xbox 360 Kinect game. It also has strong social elements

in that users can easily upload and share their run data on Facebook and Twitter.

4.1 Theories on motivation

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Before we start discussing the works of Ryan and Deci, whose work was most heavily used to determine

our question set for the interviews. These include Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1954), in which he

ranked different physiological, psychological and sociological needs in a pyramid of ascending

importance. The core needs identified by Maslow were as follows: self-actualization, esteem, love and

belonging safety and physiological needs such as food, water and sex. Maslow’s theories laid solid

ground work but were criticized because his rankings of the needs were deemed ethnocentric (Hostede,

1984) and arbitrary.

Regardless, Maslow’s needs theory was later expanded upon by Herzeberg’s two-factor theory,

Adelfer’s ERG theory and Ryan and Deci’s Self Determination Theory. For the purpose of this thesis we

will be looking more closely at Self Determination theory and more in particular two of its sub-theories

will be looked at more thoroughly as we proceed. Self-Determination Theory zooms in on what drives a

person to make choices without external influence.

4.2 Five principal perspectives

According to Krapp (1993), there are five principal perspectives in which motivational theories can be

differentiated.

The trait perspective interprets individual characteristics as motivational sources that are stable

over time contexts. In these theories motivation is classified in motives, needs and characteristics

that include achievement motive, need for recognition, sensation seeking and need for affiliation.

In games these needs can be met by giving the player a sense of doing something meaningful and

useful and badges serve to illustrate the recognition and affiliation aspect. Antin & Churchill

(2011) state these virtual status symbols communicate shared experiences and activities.

The behaviorist perspective, which we briefly touched upon earlier, views motivation as an

accumulated result of earlier experiences. Operant conditioning is again a key concept, but this

time the subject is human and the stimuli used to get the desirable action can be money or in-

game rewards such as achievements, leveling up, whereas the negative stimuli can be losing a

life or experience points. The Nike Fuelband applies these concepts by rewarding you when you

consistently meet your daily goals by displaying streaks. The punishment comes from the bad

feeling players get when that streak gets broken.

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The cognitive perspective sees motivation in a rational ands and means context. When a

Fitocracy user first registers on the site he is immediately asked what his fitness goals are. Is he

using the platform to lose weight primarily, or does he want to gain strength? Based on these

parameters the suggested groups and other aspects of the application adjust itself to cater to that

individual’s needs. Fitocracy assumes someone who is training for strength is not interested in

the same things as someone who primarily wants to lose weight and suggests different groups so

that people can better surround themselves with like-minded indiviudals.

The perspective interest centers on individual preferences for certain topics or contents. For

gamification, this means a diverse array of options should be presented. Bartle (1996) suggests a

framework of player types such as explorers, killers, achievers and socializers. Ideally, the

gamified platforms should cater to each of these groups so that every type of player can find

something to be immersed by.

The fifth and final type of motivational theory is the Self-Determination theory posited by

Ryan and Deci (2001). SDT is a macro-theory that consists of 5 sub-theories, of which we will

discuss two in more detail in the following paragraphs. SDT distinguishes two forms of

motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is spurred on by an interest

or enjoyment of a task itself without the requirement of external rewards or pressure, whereas

extrinsic motivation is dependent of these things. Extrinsic motivation leads people to do certain

tasks because they expect a certain outcome. Extrinsic motivation can be harmful for intrinsic

motivation. When a reward is withdrawn sometimes people lose interest in a task they found

inherently interesting.

4.3 Organismic Integration Theory

The first sub-theory of SDT relevant to our research is the Organismic Integration Theory. This theory

describes the spectrum of motivation from complete lack of motivation (amotivation) to self-determined

intrinsic motivation. Depending on circumstances, people can shift from one end of the spectrum to the

other. This is highly relevant for gamification, because as it relies on a lot of external rewards to get

someone to do a certain task, Organismic Integration Theory shows the potential downsides of this. The

controlling aspect of rewards based upon gaining or losing status can cause the loss of internal

motivation.

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A meta-analysis by Deci, Ryan and Koestner looked at 128 studies that examined motivation in an

educational context revealed that virtually any form of reward, barring non-controlling verbal awards,

led to a decrease in internal motivation (2001). An overemphasis of external rewards could be very

damaging to intrinsic motivation in the long run. The possible implication for our research here is that a

person already interested in exercising might lose this inherent interest once the external rewards stop.

Zichermann & Cunningham (2011, p.27) propose that once you start giving someone a reward in a

gamified system, you have to keep that person in that reward loop forever to combat this effect. If a task

was already perceived uninteresting however, the loss of external motivators does not damage internal

motivation as much, because there wasn’t much of it present in the first place.

Ideally, gamification is used to convince people of the inherent usefulness of a task like exercising so

that the person comes to view it as something he genuinely finds meaningful. To get there, the

gamification effort must have a multifaceted design where different type of personalities can engage in

something that appeals to them. If a person starts self-identifying and integrating the activity with their

personal goals and needs they are more likely to view the activity in a positive light. If they start finding

the activity more meaningful they are more likely to integrate it as something they view intrinsically

motivating. The diagram below shows this continuum of internalization.

Figure 2: Organismic Integration Theory Illustrated (Deci, 2001).

4.5 Cognitive Evaluation Theory

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The second sub-theory of Self-determination theory we deem important to our research is Cognitive

Evaluation Theory. This theory focuses on three key concepts that are employed to facilitate intrinsic

motivation in a positive fashion: Autonomy, Relatedness and Competence. Other research on SDT and

exercise reveals that the best way to influence someone’s enjoyment of exercise, the most powerful

method is creating an atmosphere with a large emphasis on cooperation, effort and personal

improvement in which the three concepts we mentioned are at the forefront (Murcia e.a.,2008). These

three concepts helped determine which questions to ask users of both Fitocracy and Nike+.

Figure 3.: Self-Determination Theory's three major components (Deci, 2000).

In the following paragraphs we briefly give an idea how these concepts can be applied to a self-

monitoring fitness application like Fitocracy.

Autonomy

Each user logged activity nets said user a certain amount of points. Upon registration users outline their

goals and interests. People have varying reasons for working out and the site caters to that. A user

interested in working out to lose weight will get a highly significantly different customized site

experience than a user primarily working out to increase strength.

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Figure 4: Fitocracy sign up page offering user customization (Fitocracy.com).

Competency

Fitocracy allows users to log a huge variety of specific fitness exercises and activities and gives them

points and other rewards such as badges upon completion. These are designed in such a way that easy

activities generally offer less points than harder ones. For instance bench pressing 20 kg will reward a

person with less points than someone benching 50 kg. Running 500 meters will give you less points than

if you were to run 2 kilometers. This is meant to instill a sense of progression. As you gain points you

level up in the application and in theory so does your body. For the sake of truly embodying

competence, the points rewarded for each exercise should mirror the amount of effort expended or the

exercise’s relative usefulness in someone’s routine.

Figure 5: Earning points in Fitocracy after a workout.

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Relatedness

The above figure is a good illustration of the relatedness aspect. Fitocracy allows users to join groups

where users are encouraged to support each other’s progress and as seen in the illustration it also enables

people to share their earned points or badges on other social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

Figure 6: Three Corners of Reward (Fletcher, 2013)

Fletcher’s “The Three Corners of Reward” diagram offers a nice summation of the concepts we’ve

covered so far. It applies Self-determination theory to a gamified application and gives a clear visual

representation of where certain elements such as leaderboards and achievements fit in. Interestingly, it

considers social play to be conceptually right in the middle of the extrinsic and intrinsic dimensions. In

doing so it nicely illustrates how social elements can lead to an increase in external motivators such as

status, but at the same time also allows for people to find genuine encouragement from like-minded

individuals to get better at something that inherently interests them.

Flow

Another theory closely linked to Self-Determination Theory is Flow Theory (Csikszentmihalyi 1990).

Flow is a state of mind in which a person becomes so engrossed by an activity that the person loses

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some self-awareness and experiences a warped perception of time. In order to experience flow the task

must contain set goals and progress, must give clear and immediate feedback and must carefully offer a

balance between perceived challenge and the perceived skills of the person.

Flow states are common in game playing and in fact some researchers claim it is one of the principal

reasons people partake in games (Garris e.a., 2002, 452) (Chen, 2010, 7). A carefully crafted balance of

skill and challenge serves to keep people engaged and playing as it is experienced as something

rewarding.

5. Research question

The main goal of this thesis is to investigate the link between gamification and motivation in these

fitness application. Our research question can such be stated as such: What aspects of gamified fitness

applications motivate or demotivate people? That is our main premise, but along the way we will try to

zoom further in on this concept of motivation. Do gamified elements foster extrinsic motivation or are

they more inclined towards the intrinsic, and what about amotivation? Because the social aspect is also a

core feature of these platforms we will heavily delve into different aspects of this as well. How do users

interact with their friends/followers? Do they know these people in real life? Are they inclined to follow

or give out advice to them? These are a few of the questions asked in our depth-interviews and we will

try to analyze them to the fullest extent possible to provide new insights for future research.

Hypotheses

- Gamified platforms have an effect on a user’s motivation

- Gamified platforms can in some ways demotivate people

- Gamified platforms are best combined with extensive social features

- The motivation gained from gamified platforms is there because people voluntarily participate

- There exists a need an opportunity to tweak discouraging elements

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6. Methodology

For this academic paper we conducted 10 interviews with users of the Fitocracy and Nike+ app. These

users were recruited through a mix of social media and solicits on various Fitocracy groups. In order to

attract a varied crowd among the groups chosen were: Fitocracy Geeks, Lady Lifters, Welcome To

Fitocracy, Over 40, No Barbie Weights, Belgium, and Weight Loss.

Age groups

The people who responded were between the ages of 23 and 42. We ended up with a nice spread of 5

females and 5 males, although making gender based claims does not fall within the scope of this

research. 8 Fitocracy members were interviewed, along with two Nike+ users. Runkeeper was also

mentioned in a few of the interviews and is notable because its data is compatible with Fitocracy, but

will not be discussed very deeply

Geographic spread

Geographically we had 2 Belgians, 7 citizens of the United States of America and one Canadian as

interview subjects. The first two mentioned nationalities were interviewed in Dutch, as is reflected in the

raw data, but the data we ended up integrating in this paper was translated in English for obvious

reasons.

The goal of the solicits we posted in these groups was to attract what we consider to be lead users.

People from varying backgrounds and walks of life, but with a vested interest in either Fitocracy or

Nike+. Most of the interviews were conducted via Skype, as the geographic spread of the members

made it an obviously more convenient way of setting up the interview.

Interview duration

Each interview lasted around 30-60 minutes and covered an array of topics that will be fully outlined

theme by theme later on in the report. Such themes included topics like frequency of use, ease of use,

motivation and demotivation, competitiveness, the usage of gamification beyond fitness apps and

suggestions for future improvements the platform makers could implement. All of these topics were

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deemed as important because they directly relate to concepts found in the literature, such as Deci’s

Competence, Autonomy and Relatedness in Self-Determination theory.

Question set

There was a set list of questions, but for the sake of conducting natural sounding interviews, the same

order of questions was not followed in each interview and depending on the users’ answers some follow

up questions were asked to some people, but not too others. Despite the question list being mostly

grounded in the literature study our list of questions furthermore did tend to evolve as more interviews

were performed. As some users listed interesting aspects, these topics they mentioned were later

integrated in subsequent interviews as they fit within the scope of the research and led to valuable

information we would not have gotten otherwise.

Apart from basic demographic questions, most of the questions we asked were derived from the

literature. After the demographic questions, we tried to assess a person’s attitude towards exercising

before they used the platform. After this we generally asked whether they felt Fitocracy or Nike+ had

changed some of these attitudes to get a sense of the motivational shifts we discussed in the segment on

Organismic Integration Theory.

Another facet of Self-Determination theory that was used to get to our questions were the concepts of

Autonomy, Competence and Relatedness. The autonomy aspect was factored into questions about the

ease of use of both platforms. The Competence element was used in questions relating to the challenging

elements of the platforms. Does the leveling actually mean something for users? Do they feel it is an

accurate reflection of their progress or not? Finally, Relatedness was an element that led to asking many

questions about the social aspect of the applications. Questions about friend list, interactions with other

users and the type of atmosphere in the application’s Groups were given a great deal of importance.

The segment on persuasion technology also inspired many of the questions. How important are the

rewards to these users? Do they actually succeed in pushing people to do something they otherwise

wouldn’t have done? How convincing are other users when soliciting advice?

Throughout the literature study we also briefly covered some of the less desirable aspects of

gamification. This was reflected in questions about using gamification in less than voluntary contexts,

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for example the workplace. Because we felt some of these questions were a bit leading at times, this part

of the research doesn’t have the weight it initially had during the interviews in the final product.

Secondary sources

Apart from the academic sources covered in the literature, some internet sources were also consulted

based on some of the answers the respondents gave and this resulted in some valuable extra data found

on other social media platforms. Some of the most interesting quotes or ideas found there will also

appear over the course of the paper, but since it was not our primary means of data collection, this was

kept to a minimum. Ultimately our goal was to distill the information we collected and output it in such

a way that minimizes data loss. As previously established we used Skype to conduct the interviews and

recorded these calls with the iPad application Skyrecorder, which produced .wav outputs.

Data Analysis

In order to make sense of the data we gathered the most powerful quotes found in the interviews and

gathered them in themes that mirror elements we identified as being important during our literature

study. After an introduction of our participants we organized the data according to themes such as

Application Usage, the types of sports logged, in what way their behavior did or did not change as a

result of using the app and zoomed in on some elements of gamification that could lead to an increase or

decrease in motivation. Along the way we touch on concepts found in the literature such as the spectrum

between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, competency, relatedness and autonomy and the persuasive

and behaviorist aspects that run behind the scenes in these applications. In order to group the relevant

data efficiently we used a color coding scheme to indicate which segment of text belonged to which

topic.

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7. Report

What follows is the actual empiric part of our research. Over the next few pages we have compiled the

most important themes and findings per such themes. As mentioned in the description of our

methodology for this academic thesis we have decided to query ten users of gamified applications

geared towards fitness. We will start by describing the interview subjects we have gathered for this in

short.

7.1.1 Participants:

In total we reached 8 users of the popular fitness application and social platform Fitocracy. We posted a

call to action in a wide variety of groups and arranged to do Skype interviews with the people who

responded to this solicit. For the Fitocracy app we were able to interview 5 females and three males aged

between 23-42, living either in the United States or Canada. The Nike+ interviews were arranged by

asking around on social media channels, more in particular Facebook. Two males, one 26, the other 32

ended up being interviewed, both from Belgium. Our first interview was an in-person interview, the

second was interviewed via Skype to facilitate his working schedule. In the ensuing paragraphs we will

give a quick bio of each participant.

7.1.2 Fitocracy participants:

Our first respondent is Tamir, a 27 year old citizen of the United States and owner of an establishment

called Unique Training Group in New Jersey. Tamir is a relatively new member of the platform, but

uses the app on a day to day basis in order to track his weightlifting workouts. He plays other sports as

well, but won’t always log those.

The second respondent we reached was Toby. Much like Tamir, he is based in the US and is currently

working for the Target Corporate Office in the pharmacy department. Toby is 23 years of age and

responded to our message on the group Fitocracy geeks. He is an avid gamer and so had unique things to

say on how the game elements in Fitocracy matched certain set expectations of his.

Next up is Ian, a 38 year old programmer, also living in the USA in the state of Oregon to be more

exact. Ian uses the app to track his running and lifting habits and was the only member who linked up

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the Fitocracy app with Runkeeper. As will be discussed later on, Ian had very interesting things to say

about data operability and potential future features.

The 24 year old Allie was the only Canadian member we reached. She has been using Fitocracy for a

little over a year. She is currently studying to be a kinesiologist and has plans to incorporate Fitocracy in

her future practice. Currently she logs her Chinese martial arts exercises using the app.

Neha is a 25 year old graduate student, who’s been with Fitocracy since about the day it launched.

Unfortunately the Skype connection we had with her was less than ideal, leading to some difficulties

during the interview and afterwards with the transcription process. Some of her responses were all but

inaudible, which has been noted in the raw data with *inaudible* tags. Nevertheless we have tried to

incorporate as much of her input as we could.

Michelle was the eldest queried user. She is a 42 year old ex-military service member who currently

uses the application to log the weight lifting. Other member profiles give her a motivation boost as she

views it as a way of seeing what she might possibly achieve in the future.

Our most talkative respondent was Rachel, a 28 year old stay at home mom at the moment who is

mostly driven by the social aspect of the platform. She reported how Fitocracy completely changed her

workout routine and her views towards exercise as a whole.

Lastly, we have Natasha, a 23 year old student of primate behavior and ecology. She represents the

newest Fitocracy member we interviewed. While she has only been using the platform for close to a

month, she does use it extensively and had many interesting things to say about how the points and

badges system can also work in demotivating ways.

7. 1.3 Nike+ participants

The two participants we spoke about their Nike+ usage were Tom and Christophe. Both have a

background closely related to games and were selected because they might have interesting things to say

about the gamification aspect of these applications. Both are of the Belgian nationality. The interviews

were conducted in Dutch, but relevant quotes will be translated in English throughout this report.

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Tom is a 32 year old game store owner and programmer. He is the only person we interviewed who has

since stopped using the application and thus had some interesting things to say about the factors that led

him to quit using the application.

Christophe uses the Nike+ app in conjunction with Nike Fuel band, a wearable computing wristband

that acts as a pedometer and calorie burning tracker. Christophe works for Telenet and is a writer for a

gaming magazine called 9Lives Magazine. He occasionally reviews similar applications for the

magazine.

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7.2 Application usage

We decided to focus on the application usage of our respondents to sketch a picture of how they are

using the application. Barring Tom, each interviewee is a currently active user of either one of the two

mentioned applications. Fitocracy has been around since late 2011. At first they launched the

application as an invite-only beta application. Only one of the members we surveyed, Neha, has been

around since the start although she admits to not having used the beta as much. However, since its

inception she does report seeing some changes:

“I think it changed in terms of the kind of people who are on it. Initially it was more I want to say,

maybe more successful people, who have more time or more money. Whereas now I think more regular

people have started using. Also when it first started there were more people who were modest about

fitness and nowadays it seems that there are more beginners coming in.”

Another early member was the Canadian Allie, who has been using the app for over a year. While she

started using the app early as well, much like Neha she reported a period of time in which she did not

use the applications very much. Over the summer she felt she was too busy to use Fitocracy.

Toby was the third earliest joiner in our list. He started using Fitocracy eight months ago and has since

been logging every activity he undertakes.

The other queries members all started 1-6 months ago, but did not report taking any breaks from

Fitocracy. Tamir even uses the app on a daily basis to carefully log his fitness progress. For him

Fitocracy felt like a natural extension of data logging he used to do on paper.

In terms of frequency distribution, results between participants hardly diverged. All Fitocracy users

reported logging virtually every workout they did. Christophe, the Nike+ users wears his Nike Fuel

band on a day to day basis as well. Apart from the Fuel Band he also has the option of tracking his runs

through a sensor in his shoes, but he rarely uses this feature because he feels it is only useful for indoor

runs.

When asked if the logging takes a lot of discipline most members agreed that it doesn’t. Tamir argues

that’s just part of getting good result, while Natasha states she sees going to the gym and logging her

activities as a nice break from an otherwise stressful student life.

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Whether or not the application takes up too much of the users time or not varied quite a bit. Allie reports

spending 2-3 hours on the platform, which she doesn’t feel takes up too much time, whereas someone

like Rachel, the most avid user of the social groups we queried states she feels she’s often spending way

too much time on the platform:

“I’d say the biggest pitfall is just like any social network or anything competitive is that you can spend

way too much time on it, sometimes I just start browsing around groups or people’s feeds and waste

time that I maybe should have been at the gym or doing something else. “

Fitocracy has normal membership and a premium paid membership. Much to our surprised most of the

people surveyed were Hero Members. Whilst they pay in exchange for exclusive features such as

“dueling” other accounts, more extensive stat tracking and private messaging functionality most of these

users did not buy the Hero membership for these features. While Toby mentions that some of these extra

features are nice, he does not see that much added value in it. Other members such as Rachel comment

that while they got excited for features like private messaging they mostly acquired the Hero

membership as a way of just supporting the site:

“You know, to be honest, if they had strictly just been asking for donations I probably would have

contributed the same amount and I do that for a couple of other sites that I use really heavily that I find

that I personally have gotten a lot out of and I also admit that I use Adblocker on my browser. So I know

there are ads on there, but I never see them, so I know that they’re not getting any money from me, so

it’s the least that I could do for them.”

This gives us a sense of the engagement our respondents have with both platforms. From what we can

tell, almost the entire group is highly involved and uses the products on a frequent basis.

7.3 Types of sports logged

We felt the need to ask about which sports users are doing to get a better sense of what they are doing

with these application. Because a lot of these tools depend on self-monitoring, it is important to gauge

whether the data the app captures is accurate in conveying an accurate representation of the activity

logged and if users feel the external rewards generated by their feedback are appropriate.

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For Nike+ we can be fairly brief about this. The Nike+ running app measures and outputs data based on

runs logged, whereas the Nike Fuelband will generally register any type of movement. According to

Christophe this feature does tend to lead to inaccurate tracking as people who make exaggerated arm

motions while typing at their desk will for instance be able to net more points than someone leading a

more active lifestyle.

For Fitocracy, the biggest common denominator is weightlifting, although the application facilitates

the logging of a vast array of sports. As such we asked several of our respondents if they felt Fitocracy

led them to try new forms of exercise. Toby felt that while the users on the platform will often guide

people towards trying new things, but speculates the prevalence of lifting on the platforms has a lot to do

with the site’s founders:

“I don’t think it’s very personalized like that. If you look at the two founders or all employees really are

big proponents of old school barbell weightlifting and I think you can see a little bit of them guiding

you towards that. Because that’s where the best points are.”

Every interviewed user did some type of weight lifting, but apart from that there were huge differences

in the types of sports they logged. Allie is a big proponent of Chinese Martial Arts such as Tai Chi. Neha

also is quite a busy bee, combining yoga with powerlifting, kickboxing and cardio. Natasha reports

being very active her entire life having played tennis, taking dance classes and currently engaging in

very intensive fitness classes Natasha highlights one of the weaknesses of Fitocracy.

“I guess I do exercises that aren’t necessarily normal, like when I do my solo exercises I do a lot of

exercises like weighted ball exercises and there’s not a lot of those options to log on Fitocracy. And just

because I enjoy classes more than anything, I feel I get a harder workout when I take a class, but I get

less points for it.”

Natasha’s frustration here ties into both the Autonomy aspect and the Competency concept. She feels

disappointment because the application in its current form is not flexible enough to fully capture all the

activities she is doing. Furthermore, she feels that her mastery of several hard exercises is not rewarded

enough at the moment. This is a scenario in which the external motivators might affect internal

motivation, as people with more out of the box exercise routines are indirectly discouraged from doing

these types of exercises because the application decides they are not worth as many points as some of

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the easier more conventional ones. There is a disconnect between the actual intensity and usefulness of

the exercise and the points rewarded by the application.

When tracking their workouts, users have to input whatever exercises they did, such as “the first

exercise I did was 5 reps of front squats at 50 kg”. While Fitocracy’s database is fairly extensive and

features a wide array of exercises and different types of sports to log, at the moment the lifting is the

most fleshed out activity at the moment, further backing Toby’s claim that there might be a slight

founder bias towards these sports.

During our interview with Ian we heard similar echoes of this, regarding the ease of use of logging more

arcane types of exercise: “I think the more common the exercise is the easier it is, there are a couple of

ones that Fitocracy doesn’t seem to have yet.”

Apart from lifting and the exercises described in his quote, Ian also uses Fitocracy to track his daily

bicycle commutes and also practices racewalking. To track these things Ian makes use of the

connectivity between Runkeeper, another gamified fitness application and Fitocracy.

He is a huge proponent of data interoperability like this and if possible he would like to export the data

he logs on Fitocracy to other platforms such as SuperBetter.

“When I get a badge in Fitocracy, I’d like that to be a badge in Superbetter.”

Ian’s proposal here suggests freeing the rewards from the Fitocracy ecosystem and allowing them to be

inserted in an aggregator service of sorts. This suggestion might solve Natasha’s issue provided that

other platforms would let her log the specific exercises she engages in. This could ensure that

frustrations arisen by a feeling that her competency is not accurately reflected in the application are

mitigated. It also further strengthens the belief that gamification platforms should be diversified enough

so that multiple player types like the ones Bartle suggested each feel something that keeps them

interested.

7.4 Behavioral change

As one of the core questions in this study concerns motivation, we asked most respondents several

questions that aimed to find out whether their usage of Fitocracy had affected their exercise habits or

outlook certain fitness related aspects. Has their motivation increased or decreased as a result of their

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usage? In short we can attest that many of the users did report significant changes to their routines or

their outlook on exercising as a whole. We have picked out some of the more telling quotes to illustrate

this:

Toby: “ I was very active when I was younger back in secondary school, but I got out of it for a few

years and I’ve discovered that Fitocracy has really helped me as I’ve gotten back to being active in

supporting and encouraging what I work on.”

When prompted why Toby responded with the following:

There’s two different aspects, there’s obviously the social aspect it’s a community that’s very

supportive and it’s nice to know that when I work out a lot of people are paying attention to it and say

hey good job. And then there’s just the game aspect of it. It’s fun to go out there and get points and

level up and I’ll actually look at the challenges and go oh maybe I should go do a run today and see if I

can run a mile in under ten minutes.

Ian is more cautious and reports a mild increase in activity:

“I’m working out a little more. I’m fairly active anyway, but it was around September that I got back

into weightlifting after a long time away and I was using Fitocracy just to track that and I was starting

on the machines because I’m easing back into it and I was going to free weights a lot sooner than I

would have, just because of Fitocracy because I wanted the variety and the points and so forth . So I

do find myself trying more things and maybe exercising a little more. Because I was already exercising

anyway, so I wasn’t just going from nothing to a lot of exercise but it did make me work out a little

more.”

Allie proclaims an increase in motivation directly linked to the points system:

A little, I had…I did a regular martial arts practice, but when I started Fitocracy I found it to be extra

motivating to do extra workouts on my own. For the points, when I was close to a level I’d squeeze in a

few extra workouts to get to the next level.

Michelle finds Fitocracy has helped her attain an increased efficiency among other things:

“I found that it did […change my existing habits…] I was already in a pretty good fitness routine but

there was quite a bit of information about how to improve that and how to make it less time

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consuming. By doing things in some ways, suggesting stuff like doing more compound movements and

less smaller movements, so yes it did.”

Rachel had quite a lot to say about this subject as well. For her Fitocracy not only increased the

efficiency of what she was doing before; it fundamentally changed her exercise habits:

“It’s like completely than it was before. I’ve always enjoyed working out to some degree or another but

I got out of the habit when I got pregnant. It’s been about two years since I worked out consistently and

before when I worked out, I also worked out in a completely different way. Fitocracy not only helped

me get consistent again, it also helped me learn a whole bunch about how to exercise more efficiently.”

When I found Fitocracy I kind of decided to re-educate myself on fitness because I realize that it hadn’t

really been effective before. I wanted to learn, I kind of wanted to start all over, from the beginning. So I

started doing a bunch of research, not just on the website but it kind of spawned research for me and I

led me to learning to lift weights, heavy weights. Like learning to use free weights in the gym and things

like that. So that’s what my main workout is. So I incorporated some high intensity training with the

cardio I was doing, and I’m still doing some of the cardio I was doing just for fun now and then. But I

see a huge difference in my fitness level, only a few months into it. I’m still pretty new at it. I dropped all

baby weight, in no time, and I’m seeing huge differences in my fitness now.

The Nike+ members also reported huge differences to the way they exercised. Unlike all the other

participants, Tom had no previous history of being active and as a gamer found the game elements,

combined with healthy friendly competition proved to be an excellent drive to start a more active

lifestyle.

For Christophe this effect was not quite as pronounced as with Tom, he was previously active, although

admittedly, not very. Nevertheless he too reports vast effects on his drive and endurance:

“It definitely had a positive influence, I ran a lot less and I started using Nike+ purely to start training

for the “ten miles” but then the application’s feedback keeps telling you improved compared to the week

before. You want to be active and you want to beat yourself. If the application tells you, you were

running better the week before , it gives you the drive to go out there and do those extra kilometers.”

It definitely helps me to move more, to keep being motivated. I’m actually kind of addicted to it, but at

the same time really happy with it as well. It keeps motivating you to get out there and run when it’s

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cold and rainy. It’s competing with yourself. I never would have gone out on such days before, or during

Winter . As long as it keeps stimulating me I don’t care about its disadvantages, they won’t make me

quit the app, because it really works.”

These quotes suggest most participants were intrinsically motivated to exercise from the onset. Despite

research suggesting the external rewards potentially affecting internal motivation in a detrimental way,

here the external rewards mostly seem to reinforce previously existing intrinsic motivation. To touch on

behaviorism again, the positive reward feedback loops users get from leveling up and receiving points

keeps them motivated as the loop doesn’t end but is reinforced by each logging session, which for

Zichermann (2011) was a prerequisite for a successful gamification. Once you turn on the reward faucet,

you can’t turn it off. For future research it would be interesting to preselect some participants who did

not have an extensive history of exercising and compare the potentially different findings between

groups of people with an already high intrinsic motivation and groups that were mostly extrinsically

motivated when they started using the application.

The people we didn’t cover in the above paragraphs did not report heavy instances of changed athletic

behavior, but that is not to say the applications didn’t affect them. Instead, we saw a bit of a different

trend. In these people we mostly saw that Fitocracy aided in strengthening existing exercise patterns.

To quote Tamir for example:

It’s not that type of a tool for me unfortunately, just being in this industry and just you know it’s

something I’ve always been doing, it’s just a convenience for me.

To get a sense of how motivation might be affected when the rewards suddenly stop, we asked users

how they might feel if there profile were to be deleted one day. By asking which aspects they’d miss we

also hoped to identify which aspects of gamification were most important in maintaining the motivation.

7.6 Profile deletion

The most extreme answer in this regard came from Tom. For him the question wasn’t hypothetical as he

had previously experienced a loss of data. He quit using the applications right afterwards as he felt really

bummed out that all his points were gone. While he is careful as to not outright claim this is why he

stopped using Nike+ he admits it is very likely to have been the trigger for it.

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Tom’s harsh reaction resembles a case seen in the literature (Deci,1985) in which children are first given

rewards for drawing pictures, during which they love this activity, but the instant the reward vanishes in

some cases both their intrinsic motivation ebbed away. Tom’s statement does not completely mirror this

case as he is one of the participants who didn’t gravitate towards sports that much intrinsically. It does

suggest that for Tom the external motivators such as the achievements were steadily guiding him

towards seeing exercise as something intrinsically useful for him as suggested by Organismic

Integration Theory, but being cut off from the rewards before this continuum shift was fully realized put

a stop to this momentum, which led to him quitting running.

Christophe, the other Nike+ user also says losing his previously gained points or Nike Fuel in his case

would sting. The Nike Fuelband gives users streaks if they manage to reach their set goal on consequent

days. If I were to have a streak of 32 that means I’ve been moving for 32 days. If I were to suddenly lose

that streak, I do think I would flip out, similar to how it would feel if I lost all my Xbox or Playstation

achievements.”

Allie, likewise would experience frustration, but unlike Tom states she would persevere if a data erasure

ever were to occur:

“I’d be annoyed, because I’ve worked up a lot of levels and I’m participating in the Smart Challenge

right now. So I don’t want to lose those levels or that Smartbadge. But if I couldn’t get it back, I’d be

annoyed but I’d just go for a run and start over.”

When we asked Rachel this question, she told us she had seen something like that happen before on the

site:

“You know I actually saw someone who had that happen to them. I don’t know if he was hacked in or a

technical bug, but they restored his profile fairly quickly. I was really pleased to see how they handled

his situation, I would definitely be frustrated for sure, but I would give them the chance to either try to

restore my situation or bring me back at around the same level I was when it was deleted. If it was gone

forever that’d be sad.”

For her the loss of points, however, wouldn’t matter as much as the loss of the social parts of the site:

“It’d honestly be having a place where I could be completely nerdy about my fitness questions with

people who at least wouldn’t think that I’m crazy. Because on Facebook I can ask a few friends for

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opinions on certain things, but for the most part they don’t really care or know. So even if Fitocracy for

some reason took away the workout tracker, that’s what got me into it in the first place and I really do

like that tracker I think if it was suddenly gone I would more than ever miss having a place to be

nerdy about fitness with other people.”

Natasha echoes part of that sentiment in saying:

“I enjoy Fitocracy, so I’d probably be frustrated and confused. It’s fun to see what other people are

doing and I would probably be a little annoyed.”

Tamir, who primarily sees the app as an extension of his previously established logging behavior states

the following when asked which thing would not miss the points at all, but would miss the data he sees

as being extremely valuable.

Neha, similarly wouldn’t feel impacted as much:”

I feel I’d probably be upset, because I feel like I was starting over, but in the end I would just start over

points-wise, because I’m still at the same fitness level.”

We feel this aspect of motivation could have been explored more if we had rephrased the question a bit

in a follow-up question. It would have been interesting to ask users how they might respond if they

suddenly were forced to quit the applications entirely and they were completely phased out of their lives,

rather than just dealing with a temporary profile deletion. A more dramatic scenario could have led to

stronger answers and might have shed some light on things that were now left unspoken.

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7.7 Points and levels

When asked about the points in particular it seemed the bulk of our participants really enjoyed that

aspect of the application. Especially in regards to motivation. Apart from general questions about the

points we also thought it’d be interesting if users felt if these points and their resulting levels felt like

they mirrored their real life level of fitness. This question was probably the most divisive question in our

question set. Some people, like Toby, felt his levels on Fitocracy were closely related to how he felt in

real life, as did people like Tom and Toby:

“Uhm…I think they mirror my progress, obviously it’s not quite as directly compared as it would be

within a video game, but when I look at…I’m level 28 now whereas when I was level 5, there’s a huge

difference.”

Michelle sees the levels In a much different fashion:

“I look at them as two separate entities. The leveling up for me is more of a consistency progression, I

just hit level 26 and each level is progressively more points, I’m not sure how their math works so the

leveling up for me is more of a consistency reward. Whereas my own tracking and personal records as

far as weightlifting goes tells me I’m progressing as far as my strength training.”

The consistency progression she mentions here was also echoed by Allie. She does not see the levels as

a good benchmark of where she is at, at the moment, but she thinks it would be an okay indicator if her

exercise activity was more consistent. This makes a great deal of sense, as the levels never really deflate.

A very active person could turn into a couch potato over time. The level he once attained will still be

there, but much of his good physique could easily have faded. For users who are consistent in their

logging we feel the levels are thus probably indeed more valuable.

In general the leveling system in which users gain experience points for the exercises they log works on

a logarithmic scale. This means the gap between level 4 and level 5 is much smaller and easier than

progressing from level 51 to level 52. Rachel however had a small theory on whether this scale isn’t

tweaked based on user dropout levels:

“I actually think that I’ve just reached level 14 today and I reached level 13 like with my last workout,

so basically I’ve got level 14 within a workout and a half I think. And I felt like that was maybe a little

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bit too fast given that I’ve been off Fitocracy for a little while, so even while I was glad to have leveled

up I was thinking I feel like I maybe should have worked a little harder for that.

I know that they do increase the number of points that you need as you go higher and higher and higher.

I have a feeling that what they’re probably doing is that at my level right now this is where they start to

lose a lot of people who get tired, so that maybe they decrease the number of points between levels to

get you excited again. So that’s my theory on why I leveled up so quickly.”

For Natasha however they are a bit of a double edged blade. Natasha is a very active person that logs

multiple activities. Some of these are on the more obscure end of the spectrum, or are hard to log or

measure. When Natasha follows a fitness class the exercises follow each other in such rapid succession

that it’s very hard to log. As a result Natasha feels she works really hard, but sees very little points in

return, which she finds to be demotivating more than anything:

“I guess I do exercises that aren’t necessarily normal, like when I do my solo exercises I do a lot of

exercises like weighted ball exercises and there’s not a lot of those options to log on Fitocracy. And just

because I enjoy classes more than anything, I feel I get a harder workout when I take a class, but I get

less points for it.”

Natasha likes the point system in general and sees it as a motivator otherwise, but feels she is rewarded

less than users who are less active than her:

The points I gain don’t reflect how hard I feel I’m working and just the fact that I can’t log some of my

activities. For me the whole point system is kind of demotivating, because like for me I work really hard

and I did really well, but then it doesn’t reflect in my points, so that’s kind of demotivating. It’s like:

“Did I really not work that hard or do classes just apparently not count. There also people who do a

LOT of exercises, just in one session. They’re lifting like a lot more than you and it’s very intimidating

to see that. You want to say like: “Oh that’s so awesome, great job, look at what you can do”, but it’s

also like “Wow, I’m never going to be able to do that.”

For Tamir, they are more a novelty thing than anything else:

“Eh…you know it’s cool but it’s not really; I mean I look at my numbers as they are, the points are

whatever. But it’s actually kind of fun because when I was younger I had a lot of fun playing those role

playing games so this reminds me of that.

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It’s intriguing I like it, it’s definitely cool but it’s not something that, you know maybe in the back of my

mind that I’m like “I hope I level up”, but at the same time it’s not really what I’m using it for.”

Neha, lastly did not feel they mirrored real life progress at all.

The consistency progression aspect brought up here is fairly interesting. If Fitocracy were to implement

a separate experience bar or reward metric based on consistency they would in effect also be

implementing the punishment aspect of behaviorist reward and punishment systems. Much like games

like Farmville punishes their player base for not watering crops or performing what other arbitrary task,

users could be penalized if they did not exercise in a consistent frequency. Whether or not this would

actually increase motivation rather than just addicting people to yet another feedback loop mechanism

remains to be seen, but there could be playful implementations of a system that balances reward and

punishment all the same. Critics of gamification like Bogost (2011) would probably point out the

exploitative nature of such a mechanic.

7.7.1 Badges and achievements

Another essential aspect of modern day approaches to gamification are the hugely popular badges,

achievements and quests. These commemorate attaining very specific goals and are often a way for

developers to get users to try every single aspect their app has to offer by implementing a bunch of

easily earned achievements. On the other hand, it’s also an excellent way of letting the more competitive

users show off. Hard achievements provide a sense of status and power. They are proof of a user’s

competency and are often prominently displayed on user profiles. Points, badges and achievements can

be seen as external motivators, but could certainly foster intrinsic motivation as well. Apart from status

symbols, they also serve as tokens of your competency and the social factor of comparing achievements

with other players could also boost the feeling of relatedness and a sense of belonging.

During our interviews we wanted to know how users felt towards achievements on Fitocracy and Nike+

and whether they had explicitly tried gaining them or not. In discussing attitudes towards achievements

we wanted to get a sense of the positive and negative implications they have in gamified systems in

order to get a better feel for their net benefit. Achievements often pop up without a player explicitly

trying to gain them, so we asked our respondents if they had often consciously tried to acquire them.

Toby for starters mentions he does :

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“I do. So I just completed the first level strength badge for Deadlifting. Those are a lot of hard work to

achieve but I don’t necessarily focus on it, since it’s part of my workout, but I’ve gone and done things

like 20 rep squats for the Widowmaker achievement.”

Rachel at the time of asking had just gotten a specific achievement as well and told us about the process:

“In fact I just did one, not today but in my last workout. Specifically because I wanted to achieve the

quest. Not because it was part of my workout to begin with. So I’ve been doing a lot of the beginner

ones, because I still consider myself to be a beginner. I think I’ve achieved most of the ones for weight

lifting. So it’s definitely been kind of motivating and it helps me pick out new exercises to try that I

haven’t tried yet. That’s actually what this last quest did for me. It helped me learn how to do the row

with the barbell. So that was kind of cool.

I also found myself if I’m close to leveling up, but I haven’t quite made it quite there I’ll use like an

excuse to extra exercises just to level up.”

As previously mentioned, achievements award entry level behavior and aid in the discovery of new

aspects of a platform but are often quite difficult as well. Some people find a compulsive need to collect

each achievement, but this is probably where the gamified platform diverges from the actual game most.

In games if you are going for that ultra-hard challenge in most cases the most you stand to lose is your

time. In Fitocracy however users put their bodies to the tests and some of these weight lifting or

endurance based challenges are quite hard indeed. Bench pressing twice your body weight struck us as

something that should not be casually attempted for instance. This is why we also asked some users

whether or not they think achievements can also promote dangerous or irresponsible behavior for some

people.

Rachel wagers this is a problem the more competitive players could run into:

“I actually have seen a couple of times where I’ll see somebody who has done a full body, really intense

workout and then also then about to level up and have like an extra 500 points to go: I’ll just go out and

get those 500 points. But that’s not really a small feat actually if you’ve just done a full body workout.

So I do think that there can be times where it can be like very dangerous. Especially for people who are

really competitive by nature.

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So I’ll say that actually I’m not a very competitive person. I’m like the least motivated by competition

person that you’ll meet. So Fitocracy helped me develop a little bit of that competition. Mostly with

myself, but even so, I’m not the kind of person who’s going to do a really intense full body workout and

then try to earn the extra 500 points so I’m like a little too lazy for that. I see that that could be a risk

for some people, but I think I love to work out, but I’m a little too lazy to go that far.”

Natasha also saw potential problems arising as a cause of the achievement system and offered some

potential solutions to mitigate that risk:

“I definitely think that there’s certain achievements where you could easily be prone to injury if you

do them incorrectly. They could add a correct form and tips on how to correct your form and that’d

probably be helpful, because I do have some lingering injuries from the years of doing sports. I know my

own body limitations, luckily I’m not new to this, but someone new who is new may not know what

they’re doing and could easily injure himself. I know my body limitations and I can easily tweak my

form or to the healthiest or not do an exercise because I know it’s going to bother me. But I feel when

someone is new and they started doing them all, they could easily be prone to injury so.”

Future kinesiologist Allie also weighed in on this issue:

“Some people tend to push themselves too far and too fast, and can easily injure themselves. Others

only want to lift more weight or do more reps, and can injure themselves, and others are afraid of

training on their own. I would not ask anyone like those above to train on their own, and would watch to

make sure they do not injure themselves.”

When asked if the achievement issue in particular might facilitate such behavior, she responded with the

following;

“That is a good point. In that case it might be best to instead plan when we could try to get the

achievements, so the client knows that they can get them, but are still supervised.

As we noted in the research, there is some interest from the medical world in using these type of

applications in better bridging the gap between doctor and patient. Using an app like Fitocracy, the

medical professional presumably gets accurate information about a patient’s progress and new methods

of exercise could be suggested based on the success or failure of the exercise program a patient is

currently engaging in.

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For Nike+ user Tom the achievements were an essential factor in drawing him in. As a gamer who has a

big affinity for his Xbox Live profile, the familiar element served as something that could keep him

hooked to the platform. Getting an achievement feels like a genuine accomplishment and when it’s

sports related he truly does feel he is in a way gaining achievements for his body.

7.7.2 Leaderboards

The last very common game element we will discuss is the existence of leaderboards. These are derived

from the highscores seen since the inception of gaming and have existed since the dawn of games like

Pong and Galaga. Nowadays most games or gamified platforms will have an online scoring systems in

which users can measure themselves with friends and strangers. Fitocracy and Nike+ each have their

own implementations of leaderboards as well. Fitocracy logs the workout sessions in which you scored

the most points for instance and Nike+ will show things like most kilometers ran in a month or fastest

times for running a kilometer.

In querying users about their views on leaderboards we found a wide array of answers, however most

answers had one thing in common: they did not care much about leaderboards whatsoever. Users like

Rachel did not give it much importance at all. For her it’s a competitive element and she describes

herself as the least competitive person out there.

“I actually don’t check the leaderboards. I think I’ve done that by accident a couple of times, but I

actually try to compare it with myself. Especially because I am such a beginner and because I’m not

terribly competitive. I mostly want to see that I’m increasing my weights and I am getting more points

just to show that I’m improving just because I’m getting more points because I’m getting more points. I

think I kind of like the idea of leveling up too so I do use that for myself a little bit.”

She describes herself as only competing with herself and this is a view that others put forth as well.

Michelle similarly describes her competitive mentality as such, but does see a use for the leaderboards

regardless:

“I don’t honestly go there that often, every once in a while I will and look through the top and look at

their workouts to see what they’re doing; to broaden my knowledge of different exercises and

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different ways of looking at exercises. It’s kind of nice to see that, because it opens you up to new ideas

and things to try.”

Toby also feels relatively indifferent to the concept, but thinks they do have a bit of a compulsive draw

for some people. He also feels they could be improved:

“I don’ t think they’re as important or as interesting as they could be. It’d be cool if they had

leaderboards for individual lists or rewards for being there. But that said the leaderboards in Call of

Duty were never worth anything, but I still tried to climb up there. It’s the carrot aspect of psychology. I

think we’ve both played a video game just to get an achievement that has no value.”

Leaderboards are a divisive elements in that they only really favor a select few. Those who actively do

try and reach the top and are successful at it. For people who do have aspirations to score well compared

to others they are one of the elements that can easily demotivate people. Seeing you are at the bottom 5 th

percentile of a population could easily demotivate people from continuing to try.

Toby opts in:

“Yeah I’m sure it does and it’s the wrong message. You want to reward people who push themselves to

the next level but at the same time with physical fitness anyone who is going out there and doing

something is doing something important.”

For Tom this aspect of the leaderboards was something that straight up demotivated him. Much like the

challenges did in some ways. He relayed an anecdote in which he was going for a specific quest in

Nike+: to run 40 kilometers in a month. For someone like him, this was a huge accomplishment. But

with the way this challenge was set up Tom would see that multiple people accomplished this goal in the

span of a day. Professional athletes and marathon runners competing in the same playing field as him

served as an incredibly demotivating factor and to him at least it devalued his accomplishment.

As a solution he’d propose a system seen in some hyper–competitive games where players get assigned

in subgroups (Gold-Silver-Bronze), each with challenges suited to that level of competitor. This again

could be an indication of the need for platforms that offer something for everyone. Using Bartle’s player

types it is feasible to suggest “Killer” type players get enjoyment out of dominating other players, so

their needs are currently being met, but archetypes like “Explorers” and “Socializers” who value the

social aspects much more than competitiveness could be discouraged by a platform that only caters to

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competitive players. As different people gravitate towards different elements a successful gamification

effort should try and anticipate the needs and wants of different demographics.

This attitude can be seen in an answer by Ian as well:

“Based on the way that it’s measured, my workouts aren’t really hugely high point total workouts, so

I’m never going to be on the top of the leaderboard for that and then there’s the all-time leaderboard

which of course I’m going to increase my points all the time, but so are all the other people at the top of

the leaderboards so I don’t move around much on the leaderboards and as far as the leaderboards from

my friends. They logged very high point total workouts and they haven’t been back to the site in months

and they’re still beating me in the leaderboards. Because the last leaderboard I checked logged for the

last ten workouts.”

From these answers we can see that even in slight indifference there are two camps with regards to

leaderboards. There are those who look at the top profiles and try and learn from what these people are

doing successfully and see it as a motivational boost as it is a testament of what their body may one day

accomplish. For people like Michelle it is motivating to see others lift a huge amount of weight. For

others, maybe newer users these accomplishments are seen as something they will never realistically

achieve (so why bother). There could also be social pressure not to log your numbers as you know these

other people out there dwarf your scores in a vast way. For these people leaderboards seem to reaffirm

their belief that they are weak and the ones at the top are strong and may be more psychologically

damaging than it is inspirational.

7.8 Other demotivating aspects

Another thing that might prove to be more demotivational over time is the experience gap between new

and older users. As Rachel puts it:

“I have seen a lot of people comment, especially on the WTF (Welcome To Fitocracy) group that they

get frustrated by I guess they see people who are so advanced. There are a lot of people who are on

there who are advanced lifters especially and they have had plenty of time to develop the body that they

want, you know, the weight that they want to lift…that kind of thing. But I hear a lot of people who are

new that get frustrated with that, and I think especially that can happen if you are maybe a bit more

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competitive than I am and I understand where they’re coming from obviously. But I think maybe if it had

some context – this person has been doing this for years – you know, it might be more helpful.”

When asked if this problem might worsen in the future she responded with:

“Hmm. I think that’s interesting because It’s pretty new still even the big gaps aren’t really all that big

in the grand scheme of things. So it’ll be interesting to see, I think that Fitocracy is going to have to add

a few more gaming elements to it in the future if it continues to grow and that’s what they had planned

originally but it didn’t end up quite happening that way. But I think they’re going to have to add some

more gaming elements so that people can realize that these people have really worked a long way to

get where they are. I think when you just have the levels it can be a little bit confusing. It’s hard to see

the full picture, so I could see that potentially be a problem if they don’t insert more gaming elements.”

Concluding the facet of motivation. Two people brought up money as a motivational force that we

personally did not explore, and aren’t really a factor in Fitocracy. Nevertheless one member, Ian,

describes he got a Fitocracy Hero membership, as a way to make the entire Fitocracy concept matter to

him more.

“To me it’s almost like a trick to get myself to keep working out and trying new things. There’s this

quirk of human psychology where we’ll value something more if we’ve paid for it. So there weren’t

any Hero specific features, that I was just dying to use, but they just periodically roll out these discounts

and I figured: “Oh, the next time one of those comes along, I’ll get it.” So I don’t know, I think it’s

working.”

He then went on to describe another application that punishes people for missing goals by deducting

money from their credit card, called Beeminder. Despite the punitive aspect, Ian believes this approach

could work “at some point the amount of money will get so high that you will care about this, that’s

what the premise is. I think for it to work, it has got to be something that can be measured in an

automated way. If it’s self-reported, I think people can just go like “Oh, I don’t want to lose 30 dollars,

I’ll just say that I’ve walked ten miles today.” Here Tamir discusses the punitive elements of the

behaviorist approach to external motivators. While this loss aversion (Kahneman,1991) might work in

the short term we are inclined to support the research that suggests that once these external motivators

are removed from the equation the person may be less motivated over al longer duration of time.

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Tamir expressed an interesting in working with his fitness clients with an app that approaches the money

facet differently. According to him ”the reason Dietbet is good is because there is a lot of literature and

information coming out that says the best way to get someone to lose weight is to pay them. Dietbet is

the first tool I’ve seen that does that. We were going to do it in our business, have a program where if

someone is succeeding with the program we’d give them substantial discounts on their monthly

payments, but now I was actually thinking hey I don’t have to do that anymore I can use dietbet.com and

create a completion. We do not that during our literature study we did come across a well-known

motivational book by Pink(2006), which suggested money is not a good motivator for these type of

things.

7.9 Social

The social aspect heavily ties in to Deci’s third intrinsic motivator relatedness. This is why we put a

heavy emphasis on questions that polled Fitocracy’s social atmosphere and member dynamics such as

competitiveness and less desirable interactions such as cheating.

While not inherently exclusive to gamified platforms, the social aspect is something that vastly benefits

from a gamified environment. Apart from just being an app that logs your workouts, Fitocracy is very

much a social network site as well. As such it greatly incorporates the gamified elements described

earlier. There is a great symbiosis in the gamified and the social as Fitocracy leverages the gamified

elements as to benefit the social part. Much like Facebook there exist a multitude of groups in which its

1.000.000 users congregate. The users we queried were usually a member of at least 10 groups and had

varying degrees of activity in those groups. Rachel was a bit of an outlier in that she reported being an

active member of over 50 groups, not all fitness related.

7.9.1 Props

Besides that, again much like Facebook has the Like-button for statuses and reported activity, Fitocracy

allows users the give others props. If they log a nice workout for instance people who are following

someone else’s profile can give that user props, another scenario may be when someone posts a valuable

comment in a group discussion. These props are also counted towards some of the achievements, so the

system further rewards people for being social, posting helpful info or encouraging other users. Since it

is such an integral part of the platform we asked a series of questions about these props and their relation

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the quality of advice given on Fitocracy. These props serve as an intrinsic motivator in that they are

coming from other users who often share your motivational goals and are not automatically generated by

cold machine logic. Users tend to follow a big amount of like-minded people and we figured they might

also be a good way of filtering relevant information.

Are the props a good way of filtering the good info from the bad?

Michelle: “I think so, because quite often people will prop things and comment rather than simply

saying “what he said, or what she said”. So it just lets you know that more people subscribe to that

believe or that thought of a better way of doing things.”

Tamir however disagrees: “No, not really. Too many people think…a lot of people think sugar’s bad,

there’s a whole sugar scare right now so if somebody is posting something like that and I come along

and say “look you really don’t have to worry about sugar, you have to cut your calories and if you want

sugar you can incorporate that in a responsible way that sustains a long term program” then someone

else comes along and says “no you’re wrong, sugar is the enemy”. Then unfortunately a lot of people

are gonna prop that person. The more popular opinion isn’t necessarily the right one.

Toby meets them in the middle: “I’m not necessarily sure how easy it’d be. You can kind of see what

the trends are, if a group is right or wrong, you’d be able to pick out who’s right. But I would say if it

didn’t have as much experience from looking at other sources, it might be kind of difficult. Through

other science, so to speak.”

As does Ian: “As a very crude first pass approximation, I’d say so when you 60 props next to it. You’d

at least think some people have tried that advice and liked it enough to express their feedback.”

As for whether the props they receive feel genuine, Rachel notes that they really do, whereas someone

like Toby is of the opinion that they serve very much the same function of the Facebook Like button, in

that in often feels empty and people will prop the most inane things at times making it feel like noise

more than anything else. People leaving a nicely crafted message on his workouts does however fill him

with a genuine sense of validation.

In general though, it is our understanding that people rate the advice they receive on Fitocracy very

highly. Some members make it their mission to inform others well, such as fitness coach Tamir and

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kinesiologist Allie. Michelle likewise applies what she’s learned and hopes others can learn from her as

well.

For Rachel the quality of the advice is high, but since there is so much of it is not always easy for a

beginner to tell which advice is right for him or her:

“That I think is probably the biggest issue for someone who is brand new at exercise. Since I did have

some knowledge to work from already I think it’s easier for me to know, to be able to tell who has done

their own research already who already knows what they’re talking about based on their workouts and

the progress that they’ve made so far. But I think that’s one of the biggest hurdles Fitocracy is going to

face is figuring out how to manage groups advice based on that. So I think I’ve been doing pretty well,

weeding out the good advice from the bad advice. But it’s probably an issue that will face a lot of people

who are brand new.”

For a lot of members the first few days after joining are crucial. The power of the platform in big part

lies in the social aspect. Most users queried here reported having a lot of followers on Fitocracy. This

type of internet friendship is similar to the followers on Twitter. It is an asynchronous relationship, if

you follow someone that person does not necessarily follow you back as well, unlike a friend on

Facebook. Rachel feels that Fitocracy should do more to guide users who are brand new to the platform.

As of right now, new users are mostly accommodated and acclimatized to the platform by the existing

ones. She herself was guided by such members, but at the same time she sees older members grow tired

of some of the repeat questions new users tend to ask.

In this quote she describes how she was helped by older members:

“It’s very interesting, because when I first joined I couldn’t get anyone I knew to join because it’s a very

specific interest and I was really confused as to how I could get more friends and I remember posting

about it and somebody who was one of my random followers at the time – I only had like ten at the time

– she told me basically you just follow who you’d like to follow and is was like: “Oh!” So it opened up a

lot more that way, but I actually kind of enjoy it more that way.”

Most members actually reported having a lot of followers, but very few people who they knew in real

life. This was a bit unfortunate for this research as we would have liked to gauge the effects of

differences between real friends and the looser virtual contacts. In cases where users reported having

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some friends on the platform they were always less active or less engaged or had quit the app shortly

after joining. Unfortunately also the reasons for those departures were never quite ascertained by our

interviewees. Most cited either time or engagement constraints but could not tell for sure. While most

users would like some more real life friends on the platform, none really tried to push it hard with their

friends lest they come across as pushy.

We did ask a lot of respondents about how they think they’d feel about what benefits real life friends

could add to the platform. The main findings here is that it would probably impact the level of

competitively people have. As Natasha describes:

“Our friendship is very much , we are very competitive towards each other in who could do better in

what, if they joined and if they were easily able to get to my level, then I’d probably feel very

competitive. But it would be like a friendly, fun , competitive thing. But I’m a naturally very competitive

person, so it’s not surprising that I am competitive with my friends. But if a lot of my friends joined I

probably would be more competitive towards them.”

Nike+ users Christophe earlier contributed that he did not care about leaderboards whatsoever, but when

asked about the added friends factor he stated that could likely change this. However, one important

element is that competition has to be close and not one sided.

Tom recalls that the most fun he’s had with Nike+ was when he was competing against three of his

friends. The competition was fun because they roughly had an equal level of physique. Had one of his

friends been a marathon runner, he feels he would not have had this same sense of enjoyment at all.

7.9.2 Women and Fitocracy

Our literature study indicates that ideally to really motivate people in the context of exercise the

influence of peers is gravely important. A motivational climate with peers that share your goals and are

supportive leads to an increase of self-regulation and self-determination; it helps guarantee the

integration process of looking at task in a more intrinsically positive light. A climate with peers that

share your goals for self-improvement seems to be of paramount importance for lasting success (Murcia,

2008). An interesting illustration of this is the very large representation of women of Fitocracy. Despite

societal norms about beauty often discouraging women to pick up heavy weights we found many groups

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dedicated to just such a thing. For Rachel, discovering these groups led her to looking at exercise in a

new light and to rethink certain biases she had about weight lifting.

“ I have to say that since joining Fitocracy and reshaping my view on fitness I was pleasantly surprised

that I don’t find that much anti-women sexism there as I expected to, which is good. I actually do use

things like Bodybuilding.com. I only use their forums, but I do use them a lot for their form videos,

which I find to be quite good because of their explanations about how to perform the exercises. I mostly

use the women lifters groups I was talking about if I feel if it’s something that might be specific to a

woman’s body, or if it’s something that might be suited to a woman’s experience in a way, or if it might

be because women do tend to have sort of a lighter weights, just because of physiology that I feel like a

man might never have experienced before. So I use it for those kinds of things.

We’re just starting to see the beginning of a women’s strength revolution in a way. And we can really

see that in a group like Girls Gone Strong, which has a presence on Fitocracy, but also has their own

site. There’s very few places online outside of the groups on Fitocracy that are easily accessible and I

think that there is clearly a need.”

Rachel notes that this might be the start of a trend where women help each other become more

informed about exercises they wouldn’t consider in the past.

“I was reading a lot of women’s fitness magazine. I don’t know if you have them where you are but

Shape and Self are very popular here for women to pick up and I guess I assumed that because they

were women’s fitness magazines that the advice given would be good and a lot of the advice in there

was – you know they’d recommend strength training routines that would use maybe ten or twelve

pounds at the most at several repetitions. And when I wasn’t referring to those magazines and I thought

I was doing things on my own, I would just use the circuit machines, you know the isolation machines at

the gym because it was so easy. I didn’t have to ask anyone what to do and I thought there was a stigma

anyway for women to go over to the free weights area.

There’s always this idea that men are like throwing weights around and grunting and stuff like that,

which does happen, but not as much as I think people think it does. So I just never wanted to venture

over there. I think all of those things combined led me to a really ineffective way of working out. It was

only when people kind of told me that “Hey actually, you can go over there. Even if it makes you feel

uncomfortable, you can still be there.” And then I was like “Oh, that’s a good point.”

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It seems she feels that the beauty norms dictated by media often encourage unhealthy ways of exercise.

Weight lifting in particular is often looked down upon for women.

“Women see these rare images of women bodybuilders who when they walk around on an average day

they don’t look as built as they do on those pictures, but women don’t know that, they assume that you

know they pick up like a barbell of any size and suddenly they’re going to bulk up. So we need to

convince them and that’s how we can convince them is by showing up and doing it and going; “Hey, I

still look like a normal woman, just stronger.”

For Rachel the interactions in these groups were genuinely valuable in reconsidering previously set

views. It is encouraging to see platforms like Fitocracy do lead to a movement where women can talk

about the more geeky aspects of exercising while following the correct information and hope Fitocracy

will continue to take steps to foster this thriving environment. Furthermore the groups allow users to

display expertise and insights they have gained while using the platform. This corresponds with both the

competency and relatedness aspects proposed as motivational drivers by Deci.

That said, in the next segment we will talk about some of the more negative aspects of the social side,

namely cheating.

7.9.3 Cheating

As Fitocacy and Nike+ are full of gaming elements it is natural to assume that much like in all games,

some people tend to cheat. As for how widespread this problem is, remains to be seen and can probably

not be gleamed from our sparse amount of responses. Fitness coach Tamir estimates a lot of people

“cheat” on the platform, but do it in a way in which they are not likely to get called out on it. Rather than

posting insane workouts they will tend to use what they actually did do as a base and inflate it by about

25%. Cheating ties into the social pressure aspect we briefly covered when talking about persuasive

technology (Fogg, 2003). The surveillance element of these statistics potentially causes people to

exaggerate what they are logging or completely make up numbers as people feel their performance is

being watched and may want to be viewed more ideally. Some players may feel their progress is slower

than similar members, or just want to outright lie in order to present themselves as better than they

actually are.

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Other surveyed members chimed in by saying while they do suspect it to be a problem, the biggest

cheaters are often easily called out if they have progression pictures that don’t seem to match the

workout numbers they are boasting. Fitocracy is a rather easy platform to cheat on as all tracking

happens by manually stating whatever exercise you did. There is no automatic logging to verify that you

actually did do the exercise as logged.

For some members this cheating can lead to demotivation as, as Michelle says if I’m looking up to these

people as examples of what I might someday do and it turns out those results are fake, then yes that can

be demotivating. According to Ian, when reporting bad posts on the platform there is an option to alert

mods of suspicious looking results, so it does seem that Fitocracy is at least hand on with the problem.

None of the Fitocracy members interviewed admitted to cheating themselves. Our two Nike+ members

however did admit to messing about with the tracking sensor a bit, but both felt that ultimately they were

only cheating themselves. This attitude, that cheaters aren’t fooling anyone but themselves was

generally shared by the Fitocracy crowd as well.

The one factor mitigating most of the cheating is probably social pressure. As users get to know one

another whether in real life or in cyberspace they do have some idea of what that other person is capable

of, so cheating in plain sight would probably be more embarrassing for what it’s worth. We suspect that

Tamir’s assumption that people will tend to inflate their numbers a bit could very well be correct and

also think that some of these people might just need that little bit of ego boost. This is purely an

assumption on our parts but we suspect these might be the same users that are intimidated by other’s

genuinely high scores.

Subjects like trolling, where some users will intentionally annoy others for the sake of their own

pleasure, were also broached but ultimately not really discussed in detail. Among others, Michelle

mentioned it when discussing aspects she personally finds to be demotivating:

“I think just like in any social setting where there is, on the internet or in real life, you will run into

those personalities that will rub you the wrong way, that annoy you. But it happens everywhere, all the

time. So it’s not necessarily demotivating, I guess just slightly annoying and then you just go on and

concentrate on the good aspect.”

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7.10 Current problems

For the most parts users following one of the more standard exercise routines are very satisfied with the

application. Users with less common exercise routines however currently do sometimes feel shafted

when it comes to both easy logging and in the points they earn. As Natasha previously expressed, some

users do a lot of work without reaping the benefits in terms of points. This is because either the exercises

they are trying to log are not incorporated in the application or the format in which the exercises were

performed isn’t catered to in the application. Natasha in particular felt really frustrating that the hard

work she puts in isn’t reflected in her points total because the classes she takes are impossible to log.

We see two potential fixes to this problem. One more feasible than the other. A first logical step is to

include more exercises. There also seems to be a demand for better information about these exercises.

Michelle thinks a good way of improving both the information as some of the site’s safety issues would

be to include videos and better form instructions with each exercise.

“It’s a worldwide application so I think that adding videos, so that people that don’t speak English that

and heck even I can’t even figure out some of those moves from those descriptions and English is my

primary language so.”

Another potential solution is a lot more high concept and would take more resources. However we feel it

could be a good idea for Fitocracy to partner up with big gym chains across the world and have

instructors help decide how much points one of their fitness classes should award. This would also

address the impersonal aspect of the leaderboards as people could more easily compete with fellow gym

members and friends. When we suggested this idea to Ian he answered as follows: “Oh, I would love

that. That would be awesome if we had a big TV up at the gym that everyone who had chosen to opt in

to the Fitocracy data sharing and show the highest ranking Fitocracy member there, that would be

really motivating actually.”

Ian feels it would be a logical step for Fitocracy to make regional deals all over the world as he feels

their promotions are currently geared towards California and New York, leaving plenty people out in the

cold.

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As for the people we interviewed both Tamir and Allie have plans to integrate Fitocracy in their

employment. Both would be interested in guiding clients better by monitoring their progress on

Fitocracy and tweaking their training schemes accordingly.

Another problem Ian identified is the lack of data interoperability. As a programmer Ian would like to

have full access to his data and would like to export his Fitocracy to applications that track much more

than just fitness alone. With this Ian means he would like to add his Fitocracy achievements to

achievement aggregator site or services like SuperBetter that let people track pretty much anything.

Whether this is a realistic expectation or not Ian doubts, as he feels Fitocracy probably wouldn’t like

people running away from the site with their data, but as he points out “if Fitocracy is a good website

and I think it is, they shouldn’t be worried about people leaving.”

On the social state of affairs we were able to detect a couple of issues as well. One first said issue is

newer members having trouble finding their way around the site. The site automatically adds people to

the Welcome To Fitocracy group but people like Rachel feel they should make more efforts to orient

new members and we are inclined to agree with her assessment:

“Another thing, definitely they need to work on how to introduce new members to the site, because I was

pretty confused when I started. I was lucky because as I mentioned before I asked for help based on the

few followers that I had when I was new and they really helped me orient myself and people tend to do

this a lot. And then you see people outside a lot who tend to get really irritated by people asking the

same questions over and over again. So I think Fitocracy needs to have a better way of showing people

who are new like an orientation almost and I would love it if they could make them stop at the

knowledge center first, so that like we were talking out earlier they incorporate that as being the first

place to go for more information as opposed to just asking random people in the groups. So I think that

would be very good, some sort of an online orientation for basic questions and things like that.”

The Achievements on Fitocracy could also use some tweaking according to some members. Currently

the achievements are finite and there aren’t really that many to be earned, depending on the types of

exercise you are doing. Ian thinks it would be a good idea to allow for user generated achievements.

“The number one thing that I would like to be able to do is propose exercises or quests or even

achievements and if they had that in the future I’d consider that a strong advantage. Especially if it’s

about an activity that is I feel is very legitimate like propose a point count for it and then first of all get

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assurance that it’s going to be in my list at least for things that I can add to my workout. But obviously I

don’t think people should be able to say “I’m going to drink a glass of water and make it a 100 point per

sip.” So to give some kind of validation and if that would fit, I think that would be a huge amount of

value to get customized achievements and quests.”

Apart from the shortage of achievements, Rachel pointed towards a Reddit AMA (Ask me Anything)

session with the Fitocracy founders. Reddit (2013) is one of the bigger social media sites and were

afforded to ask the Fitocracy creators anything. Content on Reddit is filtered by giving positive votes to

worthwhile comments. This makes links as well as comments the community considers to be

meaningful to float to the top of the page. In this community questions sessions the two most upvoted

comments were:

What happened to the RPG features of Fitocracy that were originally a big selling point? Why has the

site turned into a Fitness Facebook?

and

- Upvote. This is the single biggest question I think the original members of the community have. I

wanted to be a level 10 fighter, with 18/00 strength and a +2 sword of swole. I wanted my lifting,

running, biking and hockey to somehow equal ass kicking in a fantasy world. I wanted to group

with a party and lift heavy things to kill the dragon.

- Instead, I got fitness facebook. Don't get me wrong, I love the site and I use it to track workouts.

I even interact with the community from time to time, but it's not the reason I joined. Give me my

sword!

These very much seem to be valid complaints and it is obvious the more geeky part of the community

would love these features. More leveling options and specializations if implemented correctly could also

level the playing field between early adopters and new members some more.

Platforms like Steam, a marketplace for PC games are currently experimenting with novel gamification

aspects that could be applied to these exercise applications. Recently they introduced a system where

buying or playing specific games rewards you with trading cards featuring concept art for these games

that can then be exchanged with other friends. Collecting a certain set allows players to craft badges,

which can then be traded in for monetary rewards such as a 50% discount code for a specific game.

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This out of the box thinking hints at new ways of gamification that go beyond the simple points, badges

and leaderboards. Users get rewards that have a certain monetary value and are encouraged to interact

with others. For Fitocracy players could for instance earn similar items that eventually lead them to earn

discounts at local fitness stores. Again there may be a danger in applying these type of things to

Fitocracy or Nike+ as the increase in external motivators might endanger intrinsic motivation.

The importance of self-monitoring suggested in Fogg’s research on persuasive technology (Fogg, 2003),

could for instance be given a visual form by giving players an avatar with a body type that changes as

you increase in levels that players can dress up by earning items by completing specific in-app tasks.

In one of our interviews, despite not being a gamer, Rachel was very enthusiastic to see more gaming

elements as she thought it could solve some of these issues: “I think they’re going to have to add some

more gaming elements so that people can realize that these people have really worked a long way to get

where they are. I think when you just have the levels it can be a little bit confusing. It’s hard to see the

full picture, so I could see that potentially be a problem if they don’t insert more gaming elements.”

Social feature-wise Fitocracy seems to be on the right track. While some are worried about more

commercialization hitting the platform eventually people like Michelle feel they should double down on

what they’re currently doing correctly. That is not to say that there aren’t opportunities for

improvements here and there. One we identified as being important was the quality of advice on

Fitocracy. The groups are a bustling hive of activity and a lot of the advice on there is great, but for new

users it’s not always easy to tell which person knows his stuff and which doesn’t. A way to mitigate the

possible damage from people following advice that is not suited to them would either be more in-depth

features than the current props system. If users could flag a person who gives quality advice in some

subject like for instance cycling advice that person could eventually earn a “trusted bicycle expert” mark

next to his name.

People who continually give out quality advice in long form content could also have their articles

featured on the Knowledge Center. This would provide an incentive for people who are highly qualified

to share their knowledge on the platform as it would give them an extra sense of validation and further

more a new member would be more easily able to tell who knows his stuff over who doesn’t.

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7.11 Future of gamification

In this segment we will discuss various aspects of the Fitocracy platform and gamification in general

that haven’t been dealt with so far. Throughout the course of this academic text mention has been made

of some of the problems users currently face. We will identify these problems using quotes from the

interviews and will try to address some of them. Other than this we also asked our respondent several

questions about how they see the platform evolving and whether they would like to see gamified apps

applied to a workplace environment or not.

Future-applications

We also asked several members their opinion on what they would feel about gamification being

introduced in their workplace environments as a means of tracking metrics relevant to their job. It is

highly probably that gamification will be employed more frequently in context where your participation

is not voluntary, such as in a workplace environments. As mentioned in the literature, gamification

present businesses with an excellent way of filtering useful information, which could easily be employee

metrics.

The potential problem with such implementations is that there is no opt-in if a boss requires your

participation. The aspect of play is then lost as the “player” did not start participating of his own volition

and sees the platform as something obtrusive and forced upon him. Tom noted that In more dystopian

potential applications employees could have their average completion time for tasks logged throughout

the years and this data could be shared with future employers when they apply for a new job.

Tom was also the only interviewee to make bold predictions about a gamified future. Further worries for

him included that it would further erode the sense of privacy and could have far outreaching effect if

achievement aggregating sites were to compile data from early on in your childhood to your adult life.

Say his 2 year old son were to earn achievements now for reading girly children books like “Tini goes to

the farm” that is something he could potentially be teased with later on in life, possibly leading people to

carefully craft an image of an idealized self through these platforms.

Others saw the implementation of such an app as a natural evolution of current performance metrics,

with an added fun factor that could be extra motivating. As long as these programs are geared more

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towards rewards than punishment these people would have little problems with such an application of

the technology. When asked if they would object to badges and achievements replacing otherwise

earned monetary rewards such as raises and promotion, the answer was a resounding yes. The badges

are fun, but if they’d endanger or detract from their living wages, they would not like that very much

and would definitely protest.

As it stands, gamification as a common practices is still fairly new. This is despite the trend employing

well-known elements from psychology and motivation. In the context of health promotion we will

probably see more wearable devices capturing more and more metrics. The concept of Quantified Self

will likely be more integrated as users start looking at which information might be relevant for them.

Some users here already expressed a wish for custom achievements and more data freedom. New forms

of gamification in health care will hopefully respect privacy boundaries and could serve as early

warning systems that could avert potential health crises.

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8. Conclusion

Our outset was to find exploratory answers to our research question:

What aspects of gamified fitness applications motivate or demotivate people?

While we do not claim to have found a definitive answer to this question, as our sample size to make

such claims was way too tiny, we will try to shine a spotlight on some of the aspects our respondents

have brought to the table.

We also return to our hypotheses and comment on our findings in regards to them:

Hypothesis 1: Gamified platforms have an effect on a user’s motivation

Multiple respondents have reported a positive change in behavior. Overall they found several aspects of

the gamified platforms to be highly motivating. Common motivation sources included the point system

and in particular many noted going for an “extra push” whenever they were close to leveling up in the

application.

Other valuable, if not slightly obvious information we have gathered from these interviews is that social

ties have a huge impact on motivation. Receiving props from another user, getting positive comment on

your workouts or being encouraged to get off your bed in order to gain those daily points…These were

commonly described scenarios users described as being highly motivating. Others got a sense of

accomplishment from showing off their expertise and knowledge by guiding users towards what they

view as good information sources and routines.

The sheer ease of use present for finding new exercise routines, learning from other more experienced

members and putting that knowledge to good use also seemed to provide big boost to the intrinsic

motivation most of the people already possessed. In general this led to increased and more effective

activity for the queried.

While most users didn’t have many real life friends on either Nike+ or Fitocracy, the ones that did noted

a higher interest in friendly competition and leaderboards than those who only had strangers among their

followers. Attaining achievements and showing these off gives users on the platform extra status.

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Hypothesis 2: Gamified platforms can in some ways demotivate people

For our second hypothesis we also found a number of statements that would back up this claim.

Elements which may motivate one person, serves to demotivate the other. While we didn’t really apply

any of Bartle’s (1996) four gamer types to each respondent. It seemed evident that while more

competent competitive players get a huge kick out of features like the leaderboards and your general

levels, while new or lesser capable Fitocracy or Nike+ members can get really demotivated by going on

the platform and seeing people with nearly perfect bodies and very high levels.

These people tend to get a sense of: “why bother? I can’t reach those highs anyway” whereas other

Fitocracy members tended to look at what the leaders were doing correctly. Users disinterested in

current leaderboard integration did express interest in local Fitocracy leaderboards. As of now there

probably exists a need for more types of leaderboards. Applying a class system, where new users can

only compare themselves to other fresh users might also mitigate the intimidation factor these features

entail. Early adopters of the platform may not be in super shape but can have very high levels. This gap

between older members and people starting from zero could easily widen in the future unless they

introduce new gaming elements to level the playing fields:, such as class system and more heavily

requested RPG features.

One person in particular was very disappointed with the point system, because she felt it did not

accurately measure her activity level. All users tended to log each and every activity so as to not miss a

single point or badge. The user we’re referring to had a more obscure, but very intense exercise routine

involving multiple fitness classes. These classes were hard to impossible to log or netted very few

points. The respondent here warned us that for a lot of women these fitness classes is the preferred way

of exercising a significant amount of girls could feel the same way. An easy fix would be to add more

types of exercises or making the logging of classes more easy. Ideally, striking deals with local gyms

and integrating Fitocracy aspects into their existing systems with maybe incentives like discounts if

users reach high leaderboards positions or effectively show great consistency on the app could be a very

intriguing business idea, but requires a lot of overhead.

However if Fitocracy would reach critical mass in some countries it feels like looking into making these

type of deals could be very worthwhile both for the company as the consumer. While attempts at

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hyperlocal deals like Groupon haven’t always been super successful, it seems there is potential to

employ this strategy in the commercial health industry.

Gamified platforms are best combined with extensive social features

As mentioned before, the social aspect of Fitocracy is definitely one of the reasons for its success.

Calling Fitocracy the Facebook of Fitness can either be a compliment or slur depending on who you ask,

but it’s safe to say its million members and countless group does have a significant impact on users.

Fitocracy leverages the social aspect with its game elements. People who often give out props earn

achievements, people who regularly comment do as well. This way people who aren’t naturally very

social do get some incentive to make use of the groups, commenting or props.

Finding and trusting the right information is an issue Fitocracy users are currently facing and which may

grow worse still in the future. However based on our talks it is clear there exist a good amount of people

who go out of their way to guide new members around and make sure they have an inkling of following

advice that is right for their level. However because lots of people won’t understandably dish out

sensitive medical data it is important each user carefully considers whether a piece of advice is right for

him or her. An expanded comment voting or tagging features could really help in showing new members

who is knowledgeable on certain subjects or not, which could in turn decrease their chances of getting

hurt.

The motivation gained from gamified platforms is there because people voluntarily participate

We didn’t find any hard evidence for this hypothesis. This is partly because we felt the questions that

inquired about this did maybe have some subjective researcher bias. We saw a few members comment

on how they would like to see gamification applied in the workplace, but only if there was an opt-out

feature or it didn’t directly tie into their base salaries.

There exists a need an opportunity to tweak discouraging elements

In short we propose Fitocracy does not edge towards the commercial aspect too much. A lot of members

currently subscribe to the Hero membership program not because they like the extra feature but because

they want to express their gratitude for what the site has done for them. Getting more exercises to log

seems like an obvious improvement as does providing more detailed descriptions and form videos for

each of them. Furthermore some user’s suggestion of letting users vote on the introduction of new

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achievements could further leverage the userbase and could make them feel more appreciative towards

the platform.

The gap between new members and experienced members also presents both a potential issue and

opportunity. Fitocracy should make it so that these experienced members keep guiding newer players

and make them feel appreciated while doing so. Promoting really good long form advice to their

Knowledge Center could give such a user a huge status boost.

The issue lies in the fact that new members can easily get intimidated by the older profiles and their vast

amount of point and levels could scare away members still trying to find their foothold. So there should

be a balance between giving established members status while not giving them so much importance that

newer users feel they can never reach similar levels. A way of leveling the playing field by adding new

types of experience points could facilitate this.

In closing

We realize these findings are based on a very small sample of data and might not translate to many other

users. A lot of the users we queried have a lot of experience with the platform or are newer but rapidly

became invested in it. We hope their diversity has given us a good base of concepts to work with in

future, maybe quantitative research. In regards to gamification and motivation some of our findings

seem to echo previous research efforts into this subject.

Some aspects of gamification were almost unanimously regarded as motivating, but more research could

be done about the possible detrimental effects that haven’t been covered much here. The dopamine

triggered by each little reward could prove to be quite addictive and while here this possible addiction

mostly has positive effects, but other applications of the concept could very well be more heinous. A slot

machine for instance works on similar reward principles. In all, we hope this explorative research could

later on be consulted to get a more thorough look at the subject matter.

The literature, along with the responses we acquired have mostly shown us that gamification can’t just

be about points and badges. For a successful gamification application to truly succeed it needs to

incorporate much more than that. Usage of social networking technology and allowing users to have

meaningful interactions with each other is very much a prerequisite that mitigates the coldness of

algorithms giving you pats on the back. The human touch of like-minded people who are also working

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towards a certain goal is of paramount importance for motivation to really be positively affected in the

long term. Harnessing the power of the social dynamics that are fostered on the platforms seems key in

helping people stay properly motivated, as levels of motivations tend to fluctuate for most people.

Attaining the state of flow could play a crucial part in keeping motivation more constant.

It is not evident to make bold claims about the long term of gamification however. These platforms are

still fairly young and looking at new ways to keep users engaged. It is possible that if and when

gamification becomes more pervasive as a trend, its impact will also diminish because it is no longer

special, and in some cases maybe even forced. When people start to become doused with all sorts of

rewards for performing any random task in a potential future, the signal to noise ratio of these rewards

may become much worse.

A shift towards perceiving the motivators found in gamification as purely external rather than intrinsic

could affect its viability for meaningful motivation increases in the long run. Lastly, the tendency of the

hedonic treadmill phenomenon we discussed means that when viewing gamification on a more macro

level spikes in a person’s motivation may not mean that much if they revert to normal levels in the long

run. That said, we remain hopeful that future usage of this technology will indeed give people that extra

push they often need to change their lives around in a positive fashion. If gamification manages to

remain special by adapting to societal shifts and preferences there is a lot of potential for good that will

hopefully outweigh the more negative manipulative possibilities of the technology.

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10. Addendum

Fitocracy interviews

Tamir

What is your age:

27.

What is your occupation:

I own a fitness business in the US called Unique Training Group.

How long have you been using Fitocracy?

Not too long, maybe a, I’m gonna say a couple of months now.

Do you use it frequently?

Just about every day. Every day.

Do you log every workout?

Yes, I actually use it for that purpose I used to use pen and paper and now I track it because I have an

iPhone and it’s just easier this way.

Does that take a lot of discipline?

No, not at all that’s just part of getting good results.

Have your habits changed?

No it’s not that type of a tool for me unfortunately, just being in this industry and just you know it’s

something I’ve always been doing, it’s just a convenience for me.

Primarily use iPhone app or site?

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Both. I use the iPhone app for tracking my workouts as I said, and I use the website I occasionally go

out on the feeds, if I see questions where people need help or if there’s a topic on there I find interesting

I join the conversation.

Is the social aspect valuable for you?

Yeah, I think so.

Do you frequently interact with other users?

I would say I do at least one or two posts a day yeah.

Are those friends/clients/strangers?

On Fitocracy everybody’s a stranger. I mean I do have some people that I know that I monitor their

workouts through Fitocracy, by the way that’s also a very good use of it as well. I have friends that use it

but I don’t use it to socialize with them.

Nor compete with them?

No I compete with them in the gym.

I like how Fitocracy keeps track of your record so if you hit a new personal record, it will let you know

and that’s cool.

Are achievements something you actively work towards?

No, no, but I can see myself eventually .There are a couple that are definitely intriguing but those aren’t

because of Fitocracy. For example being able to bench press twice your body weight, that’s something

that I’m pursuing regardless of Fitocracy but it’s gonna be cool when Fitocracy gives me an

achievement when I hit it.

Before Fitocracy did you use any similar applications?

No.

Do you feel the leveling up of your profile mirrors your progress in real life?

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Eeeeh…you know it’s cool but it’s not really; I mean I look at my numbers as they are, the points are

whatever. But it’s actually kind of fun because when I was younger I had a lot of fun playing those role

playing games so this reminds me of that.

It’s intriguing I like it, it’s definitely cool but it’s not something that, you know maybe in the back of my

mind that I’m like “I hope I level up”, but at the same time it’s not really what I’m using it for.

How would you react if your profile were to be deleted?

Actually I’d be pretty upset, because then I’d lose all my progress. I need to know where my lifts are so

that next time I go to the gym I know where to pick up from, but not from—I wouldn’t be upset if I lost

all my points and badges and things like that. It’s just about the fact that I’m using it to track my

workout.

Would you miss your Friend list?

No.

Do you often give or receive props?

I receive a ton of them, mainly because I do go out of my way to help people because I can. I’ve been

posting some of my recipes and pictures of the food that I’m making and I get props for that. I give

props when—somebody gives quality advice because that’s actually kind of rare these days. A lot of

people give a bunch of nonsense forum advice. I give props when I see something good like that, I give

props when I see something motivational?

Do you call people out on that?

Only—I haven’t hit the nuke button yet, but I will on the comments . Because if someone gives out

advice to someone that’s irresponsible that will annoy me. I will try to be polite about it, but you don’t

want someone to give misleading advice. I will try to help the poster out.

A lot at stake, not everyone has the same body type. As a coach you may have a better sight on

things like that as compared to the average person who’s mostly focused on himself and his own

situation.

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That’s exactly correct, that’s the how to help the average person, and what works and what doesn’t. I’m

a very scientific person, I read a lot of scientific studies all the time and my info is based on what the

latest studies say and my advice isn’t based on what the big guy at the gym said yesterday and a lot of

information on Fitocracy is based on what the big guy at the gym says and you know I try to help as

much as I can, clear up the confusion.

Do you think you’ve gotten clients through Fitocracy?

No, but I’ll be honest with you. I do think there’s potential one day. It’s not a primary objective, it’s

mostly just a social thing I try to help where I can. I realize that I might also sell an ebook or something

down the road and this could set up a basis for that, but at the moment is not something I’ve become

aggressive about, there’s a lot bigger platforms for that than Fitocracy.

Do a lot of people cheat?

Absolutely, but that’s not because of the fact that it’s the game, it’s just in the realm of lifting everyone

inflates their numbers, I’m used to that for over a decade now. Plus the fact that somebody could say I

benched 300 pounds today, but we can’t see it and he probably took it down halfway, that’s not a full

bench. People are like that but at the end of the day I’m only using it to track my own workouts. I’m not

too concerned with what someone else does, but it is helpful when somebody asks a question if I need

assess their experience and where they are but I take it all with a grain of salt.

Do you have an estimation of how much people inflate their numbers?

25% Yeah, that’s a good estimate, you can’t put a number on it but if I did I’d say, you’re adding 25 you

gotta be in the mindset of somebody, they’re gonna inflate it but they’re not gonna inflate it too much so

that they look ridiculous, so…

Do you feel it accurately measures your workout?

Automatic logging would be pretty cool, but I don’t know if it would be better. In what sense? For the

competition aspect? Then yes, people are taking the competition aspect seriously, like the leaderboard

then it’s obviously gonna help, but it’s not gonna do anything in terms of getting a person to get better

result, well actually it will by keeping them honest.

Some people may feel the need to inflate their numbers to feel better.

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The thing about Fitocracy as I see it, the competition’s cool but when I look at the tool and look at what

it could be for a normal person, because I’m not a normal person but for them see it as one a very good

way to keep track of your workouts and progress, but two and this is very important is, it’s a huge

motivational tool and that’s what I love about it. It can motivate people to stay in the gym, they feel like

there’s eyes on them. So yeah, maybe a way to keep everyone honest could keep everyone more

motivated.

Can you elaborate on that?

You know Weight Watchers right. It’s a social group, everyone goes in once a week, they weigh in in

front of each other and it’s support group based. They talk about it and it works. I’m not a big fan of

counting points I think actually that’s not productive, because people need to be educated on how to diet

properly and not take shortcuts like counting points, but it does work because of the social aspect about

it. If you look at addiction or narcotics anonymous group, it’s all about support and Fitocracy provides

that sort of support group environment. It’s not secret, most people know what they need to do to lose

weight, they know they need to eat less, they know they need to move more.

My clients don’t come up to me and need me to tell them that, although they sometimes do for some

strange reason. The point is if we know how to keep people motivated obesity wouldn’t be such an issue

and Fitocracy is a tool that really can combat obesity, by keeping people motivated. It’s a community

with everybody going towards the same goal. It actually can be very useful and that’s why I brought up

Dietbet.com, because I only discovered that not too long ago and I actually discovered that through

Fitocracy, and I’m gonna tell you something, I’m gonna use that for my business.

I can’t wait to do it. Tools like that are very good and the reason Dietbet is good is because there is a lot

of literature and information coming out that says the best way to get someone to lose weight is to pay

them. Dietbet is the first tool I’ve seen that does that. We were going to do it in our business, have a

program where if someone is succeeding with the program we’d give them substantial discounts on their

monthly payments, but now I was actually thinking hey I don’t have to do that anymore I can use

dietbet.com and create a completion.

Weight Watchers is a mostly offline support group, Fitocracy is a digital one. What are the main

differences there in terms of effect?

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If you’re in Weight Watchers you are adhering to their program especially in terms of counting points,

whereas on Fitocracy a lot of people ask nutrition questions, weight loss questions often you’re getting

the quality advice from people. They tell you to get organized, count calories, count your nutrients and

that’s more important, to teach people the right thing so at least Fitocracy is not limited towards some

other system. It allows the correct information to come out and that’s what funny about it I’ve noticed

only in social groups can real science prevail. Like Bodybuilding.com on the forum, that’s the only

place to get real information. If you go on Google and research it all you have is internet marketing

experts putting their articles on top of the search results and that doesn’t help people. That’s why

everybody thinks sugar is the enemy, which is pretty terrible.

Is the props button a good information filter?

No, not really. Too many people think…a lot of people think sugar’s bad, there’s a whole sugar scare

right now so if somebody is posting something like that and I come along and say “look you really don’t

have to worry about sugar, you have to cut your calories and if you want sugar you can incorporate that

in a responsible way that sustains a long term program” then someone else comes along and says “no

you’re wrong, sugar is the enemy”. Then unfortunately a lot of people are gonna prop that person. The

more popular opinion isn’t necessarily the right one.

Are you a member of a lot of groups?

The ones that I like yeah. I think it might be in the ten group, I’m in…19 groups.

How important are leaderboards?

I looked at it once when I joined but haven’t really looked at it since.

Are there any demotivating aspects?

No. For me it’s not a motivational tool, so I can’t say so.

If you were to place yourself in someone else’s shoes?

Demotivating maybe being new to a weight loss group. Everyone else is losing weight and I’m not. That

may be a bit intimidating, but that’s no different from anywhere else in life, you’d be intimidated no

matter where you were if you just started on a big diet journey.

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If people look at a leaderboard and they see that they’re at the bottom 5% they might get a sense

of why bother…

If Fitocracy is really viewed as a game then Fitocracy then the leaderboards can be looked at as a

competitive thing and I agree with you. But I wouldn’t know, I guess that’s where you would find out

how many people are actually seeing it that way.

How would you compare the advice on Fitocracy as opposed to other advice sources such as a

health magazine, or fitness blog?

I’ll be honest with you, the advice is horrible everywhere you go. The problem is people don’t want to

do their own research so they blindly believe what they want to believe.

Do you have a suggestion for how you could positively change that?

You know, I don’t know, if I knew what could change that. I think I’d have the solution to obesity.

Maybe the money thing. Overall I think at least in the groups that I’m seeing I hope the good

information prevails, I hope that my information tends to prevail, because I provide evidence and there

are other people out there like me that have the right kind of information and are helpful towards people.

There are groups in other communities like on the Bodybuilding.com forum where science has been able

to prevail, there are places and that’s one of them. At least the gurus out there, they started their careers

on the Bodybuilding.com forums, but other than that, there’s really not a lot.

You can’t do Google, because that’s an internet marketing thing. I can get on the top page of Google by

using keyword research and search engine optimization. You can’t go to Google for how to lose weight

because you’ll just find a person who’s trying to sell you their product. That’s the main problem.

Whereas I provide references. When I ask someone to provide evidence they often point me to Google

without really understanding the source material themselves. I go to Pubmed and all these scientific

sources when you give that kind of evidence it’s hard to refute.

Would it be a good idea for Fitocracy to scout for people like you who are providing correct

information and give them some sort of status.

Yes. Absolutely. I think that’s one of the reasons why on Bodybuilding.com the good advice can prevail.

Are you a Fitocracy hero member?

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No, I don’t really see the benefit of doing it. It’s only about adding some extra features that I don’t see

any use for myself.

Would you use a similar app in your workplace?

I could see it going either way, it’s hard to gauge something like that.

For example checking how many items a cashier scans in an hour, checking if the register balance

added up and assign them a grade based on that.

It’s interesting, I didn’t know there was stuff like that now, I think a lot of people would obviously be

against it, but most people don’t really care to check what they’re doing but I could see it also being

very useful for the person who would like to do it. For both the employee and the employer it’s

probably great, at least if the employees are okay with something like that.

What if they replaced promotions with badges?

A lot of companies employ carrot awards, so maybe this system could be used as a way of carrot

awards. But somebody could easily inflate their numbers again, it would have to be very secure and well

designed.

Anything else you’d like to add?

How old is the site?

I think it’s about two years old, let me look it up right now. It launched in February 2011 and

currently has 1 million members

If the site’s growing it could be a very powerful tool, it sounds like the site is on the right track.

Do a lot of the members of your gym use apps like Fitocracy?

Not so much because we use our own tools, that comes with our systems, but I could see potential for it

in the future. I’m always thinking of ways. If there’s an opportunity to work with it. I’m up to it,

something I’m considering is going back to some private coaching and if I pick up some clients I would

track their progress through Fitocracy. I see that as the best app for it. I don’t really like the calorie

tracking apps out there. Everybody’s getting confused with an app like My Fitness Pal, they’re actually

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double counting their calories from their exercise and I think that’s a huge mistake. I like workout

tracking and calorie counters to be different apps.

Do you practice any other sports?

Basketball, go swimming in the summer. Really anything to be honest.

Do you log those?

Let’s see if I can easily put that in…yeah, seems pretty easy. Yeah that’s actually pretty cool.

Could you suggest any improvements?

It’s a little tricky…no. I would like to be able to pull my recent workouts a little better. Like the routines

for example, that whole functionality could be improved a little bit more. So that it’s easier to find out

what you did last week and pick up from there. Maybe it would be better if you could predetermine a

routine, for example like P90X or an eight week program where say you’d increase one rep week. They

should totally have things like that.

That covers all of my questions, thank you for participating and have a nice day.

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Toby

What is your age?

23

What is your occupation?

I work for Target Corporation, the second largest retailer in America and I work within the Pharmacy

department. I work with third party insurers and pharmacy companies at the corporate office.

How long have you been using Fitocracy?

I’ve been a member since last July and I’ve been using it pretty steadily since September. So about 8

months. Generally a daily basis.

What kind of sports do you play?

I play basketball, do martial arts and then I’ve done programs as Insanity and P90X as well?

Were you always an active person?

I was very active when I was younger back in secondary school, but I got out of it for a few years and

I’ve discovered that Fitocracy has really helped me as I’ve gotten back to being active in supporting and

encouraging what I work on.

Why do you think that is?

There’s two different aspects, there’s obviously the social aspect it’s a community that’s very supportive

and it’s nice to know that when I work out a lot of people are paying attention to it and say hey good job.

And then there’s just the game aspect of it. It’s fun to go out there and get points and level up and I’ll

actually look at the challenges and go oh maybe I should go do a run today and see if I can run a mile in

under ten minutes.

Do you play any games?

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Yes. Mainly role playing and first-person shooters and I’ve also played a lot of real time strategy games

and thinks like that.

The leveling aspect is something that really could draw you in then?

Definitely, life could be a little bit more like a role playing game?

Do you feel your leveling up in the application mirrors your progress?

Uhm…I think so, obviously it’s not quite as directly compared as it would be within a video game, but

when I look at…I’m level 28 now whereas when I was level 5, there’s a huge difference.

Actively worked towards one of the achievements?

I do. So I just completed the first level strength badge for Deadlifting. Those are a lot of hard work to

achieve but I don’t necessarily focus on it, since it’s part of my workout, but I’ve gone and done things

like 20 rep squats for the Widowmaker achievement.

Social aspect. Friends/strangers

Almost all strangers. I brought a few friends in, but I maybe follow 1300 people and 5 of them are

people I know. It’s fun to be in a positive environment where people work towards a similar goal even if

you do something different. So for example one person will post a video of him doing yoga and another

person will talk about their workout, but it’s cool to see people go towards the same goal.

How many groups are you a member of?

I’ve probably joined 20-30, I’m active in 5 of them. Some of them are very interesting, but not very

active or just aren’t my thing. But the groups that fit along what I’m doing specifically like Lean Gains

and Starting Strength those are the diets and workout programs I follow. So I’ll be in there asking

questions or seeing what other people are doing. Those two are the ones that I’m in the most.

How highly do you value the advice on there compared to other sources?

I’d say I value it very highly. There aren’t necessarily experts, but it’s very good to hear feedback from

people who have actually done it. There’s more opportunity to help people compared to some other

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internet forums. There’s no “read the stickies you’re a noob” you’re actually trying to help people based

on what you say.

Is it a more friendly environment than something like Bodybuilding.com?

Yeah, I’d agree.

Is it easy to filter the best advice from the worst?

I’m not necessarily sure how easy it’d be. You can kind of see what the trends are, if a group is right or

wrong, you’d be able to pick out who’s right. But I would say if it didn’t have as much experience from

looking at other sources, it might be kind of difficult. Through other science, so to speak.

Is the props button a good advice filter?

Honestly not really. It’s kind of what liking has become on Facebook. Everybody kind of does it

compulsively.

Iphone app site/mix of both?

Primarily the site. It’s just more user-friendly on a computer and I work in an office, so it’s not

convenient. I try to stay away from the phone when I do my workout, so I have a nice piece of paper.

Do you feel logging takes a lot of discipline?

No, I feel it’s pretty easy. I tend to create routines if I know what I’m going to do throughout the week.

I’d say it’s actually kind of inverse. It sometimes creates discipline for me to make sure that I get my

workout and get everything done. Because when I log I know people can see it, so it’s public

accountability so to speak.

Speaking of public accountability, do you think a lot of people cheat?

I would say I mean I’ve seen the examples of people on top of the leaderboard running a thousand miles

a day, but I don’t think it’s super common. Generally you can link up what people say with what their

picture looks like and what they’re logging. I guess I haven’t seen too much of it, but like everything

else on the internet, the anonymity makes it hard to know.

If you were following friends would you know if something was bogus?

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Yeah, I think so.

Do you feel the leaderboards are an important element?

I don’ t think they’re as important or as interesting as they could be. It’d be cool if they had

leaderboards for individual lists or rewards for being there. But that said the leaderboards in Call of Duty

were never worth anything, but I still tried to climb up there. It’s the carrot aspect of psychology. I think

we’ve both played a video game just to get an achievement that has no value.

Have you tried any other application?

I tried the beta for something like Rising Heroes, it’s kind of like Fitocracy, but it’s still in beta so I

don’t know much about it.

Do you log each activity or workout?

Every day I try to log whatever I’ve done, so every time I go to the gym to shoot baskets or lift I will log

it because I want to make sure I get those points.

How would you react if your profile was suddenly deleted?

It’d be frustrating because of the connections and the work I’ve put into it, but at the same time I don’t

necessarily take it as seriously as I do other profiles.

Can you list some of those profiles?

My Facebook to a degree, probably my Youtube because of my subscriptions. Some of my gaming

profiles throughout the years especially on RPGs. I’ll go to the gym either way, but if the only aspect of

the profiles is my achievements within that realm and I have to start over from scratch, that’d be really

annoying.

Getting back to Fitocacy what aspect of Fitocracy would you miss the most?

Probably the group conversations and definitely the sense of identity I’ve established on the profile.

Do you highly value props?

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Uhm, it’s kind of like the Facebook like button, it doesn’t really mean much, but what makes my day is

when I hit a new personal record and someone says: hey great job. That’s the part that I value.

Otherwise it’s like a reflexive thing, like saying something funny and someone saying LOL in chat.

Doesn’t really mean you’re laughing most of the time.

Demotivating aspects of Fitocracy?

I’d say the biggest pitfall is just like any social network or anything competitive is that you can spend

way too much time on it, sometimes I just start browsing around groups or people’s feeds and waste

time that I maybe should have been at the gym or doing something else. I’d say the other thing is

depending on how you feel and this could be really personal is that it could be potentially really

demotivating to see how you know well some people do and how physically fit they are. For someone

like me it’s motivation because I strive towards it and I try to emulate what they do because obviously

they’re successful. But then if you’re coming in and you are out of shape and you see these people who

look like bodybuilding models it could be discomforting.

It’s probably based on the way they implement it and how they present things like leaderboards. I can

imagine that if they rub it in your face that you’re at the bottom fifth percentile of the population that

could feel really bad, but that’s just a personal assumption.

Yeah I’m sure it does and it’s the wrong message. You want to reward people who push themselves to

the next level but at the same time with physical fitness anyone who is going out there and doing

something is doing something important.

With different body types and such not everyone probably responds to the same routines in the

same way.

Exactly, on that same point. Another thing that could be discouraging is that as people’s bodies are

different people also work out differently. So you’ll see that people who don’t lift weights and only run

or cycle for instance feel that they don’t earn achievements or points at the same rate.

Do you think Fitocracy is a good platform to guide people to types of exercise that would be well

suited to them?

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I don’t think it’s very personalized like that. If you look at the two founders or all employees really are

big proponents of old school barbell weightlifting and I think you can see a little bit of them guiding you

towards that. Because that’s where the best points are. But I don’t think there’s a lot of personalization

in terms of guiding you towards what’s best for you.

Maybe the social groups do help with that?

Yeah, I think so. The social groups are definitely in the right direction and they’ve started to add

knowledge articles on there, so basic strength programs and basic conditioning programs. Between those

and the groups you start out in the community itself will guide you more than the app will.

How do you see the platform evolving?

It’s going in kind of interesting directions, they’re doing a partnership with Arnold Schwarzenegger

right now for example. I’ve seen more of that. My question has been: where does it go next? Does it

become more of a social network, like a Facebook light. It seems like the direction they’re going

partnerships. More articles, more knowledge but I’m not really sure where I see it going after that.

Are you a Fitocracy hero member?

Yeah, I’ve actually had it for a little while. It’s nice, it’s cool to have the titles and stuff it adds to that

role playing element, but at the time I had it, it didn’t really add any core features. Now it adds things

like private messaging and all type of forums so I’m considering redoing it. But I think even as cheap as

it is, it doesn’t really give any added value at this point.

Did it already have the analytics?

Yeah, that started right after I left.

As a gamer how would you feel about platforms like this invading the workplace?

I think it’d be, if you could work it right it could be a very fun solution. In my head I kind of do it when

I put my to-do list together, you know I check it off, even if it’s something simple but if I do 3 items off

my to do list I’ll go grab a cup of coffee at lunch or something. But to me it would be a lot of fun,

because to have an extra incentive to do what you’re already doing just sweetens the deal.

What if it starts replacing rewards you’d otherwise get like promotions?

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Hahahaha, I did not think about that. In lieu of normal performance review stats, definitely not. As

something like a fun extra it’d be great. But no I see where you’re going with that.

Some companies are already doing it.

It’s kind of funny because in the case of my company we’ve added something like the commons of a

university. There’s meeting areas, there’s ping pong tables and there’s TVs and so on and they spent all

this money on it I think hmm, we didn’t get as good a raise this year, I wonder if this is the tradeoff.

Do you often follow advice from other members?

I have. They’ve been a lot of help with fine-tuning my diet mainly. I haven’t asked for a ton of advice, it

seems like generally want to ask a question someone else has already asked it. So I just generally keep

my eyes open. But I definitely have learned a lot. The second most useful thing after the direct advice is

people that post videos for form checks on type of lifts and I just see the advice they’re giving on stuff

like “keep your back straight and whatnot.”

That is important.

I find that to be very valuable.

On the flipside do you give out advice yourself sometimes?

I am seeing it more and more as I get more experience and find myself getting more perspective.

Improvements to the platform?

Hmm, that’s a very good question. I’d say probably the biggest thing is more integration into other

previously existing things, like GPS for logging your run and things like that. Ways to take the work of

logging back and also being able to track nutrition on there would be the biggest.

That something it’s currently lacking right now?

Yeah, everyone has their own preference but they all have to go to another website to track their

nutrition or I use Excel and make a document. But I think it would be kind of fun if you’re going to go

the route of I’m going to get healthier by working out and eating better to log your meals as well.

Like an automatic calorie counter?

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Exactly.

Anything you’d like to add you think is really valuable that hasn’t been covered yet?

I think we’ve covered most of it I think it’s just interesting that it blends the advice from

Bodybuilding.com with the social side and the gaming. My only concern is as it continues to mature and

more and more people join is it going to go the way of other things I’ve seen where early adopters are

the ones that are passionate and then once the followers come along it changes the dynamic.

What would have to happen to drive you away from Fitocracy?

Uhm I’d say it’s skewed to heavily towards the social aspect, some people are on there socializing and

not even to work out. Or I think if it was changing and updating constantly like Facebook does, and it’s

not that big of a deal don’t pay for it, but it’d be annoying if I was logging in and every other week

something was changing.

And that maybe the data you’re logging isn’t consistently represented anymore?

Yeah exactly if the points start changing and so on, but the biggest one is definitely if it becomes more

of social hangout than a fitness oriented game side.

Is that a realistic fear?

I think it might be, I’ve seen more of it drift that way. I think the focus on fitness might be enough to

keep it from going over that edge, but my concern is that if it gets to that point of critical mass where it’s

popular enough, everyone starts to go there as opposed to say Facebook.

You don’t want Fitocracy to become the Facebook of fitness then?

Exactly, we already have Facebook and it does what it does, what makes Fitocracy special is that it’s

different.

In summary what do you think are the most motivating aspects?

I definitely feel the personal aspects around the workouts, if I go to the gym and I bench press more than

I’ve ever done in my life. No one in my office, no one in my family really cares, so why would I bring it

up. But I can have these virtual friends that when I do that they understand it , it means something and I

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do get that personalized message back saying: hey man, great job. So I’d say that’s probably my favorite

thing. It’s group of like-minded people who want to support you as opposed to people who just want to

be social; people who don’t care.

You get, not to put words in your mouth, maybe a sense of genuine validation.

Yeah, yeah. That’s actually a very good way of putting it. It’s like anything else with a tightened focus,

it’s good because you get people coming from the same direction as you, but then the downside of that is

that if you all think the same way you risk focusing too much that way.

Does trolling happen a lot on Fitocracy?

It does, it happens occasionally. I can think of some people I’ve seen, I don’t know if they’re trolling

intentionally or if it’s just their nature. But for the most part when it happens another member calls them

out on it, or one of the mods will. Some of the groups have some of the gentle trolling, where they

respond back with something snarky. But once again, it’s not like Bodybuilding.com where everyone

seems like an asshole. If someone says something offensive or wrong you can “nuke” the post and if a

lot of people nuke it, the post disappears.

Thank you for your participation.

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Ian

What is your age?

38.

What is your occupation?

I’m a programmer.

How long have you been using Fitocracy?

Approximately, about 6 months.

How often do you find yourself using it?

About five days a week.

Do you log every exercise?

Yes.

Hard to bring up the discipline for that?

It’s pretty easy, but I think part of that is because the reason I’ve started using it to remember what

weight I left last time so I could remember what weight I should set the machine to, what dumbbell to

pick up this time. So the whole reason I was using it to track and remember.

Do you play any other sports?

I started with the intention to use it to track lifting, but I commute by bicycle so I use it to track it as

well, because when I’m already in the app weight lifting it’s only a couple of screen taps to add the

commute as well and I also do racewalking.

It’s easy to log each of those?

Mostly, I think the more common the exercise is the easier it is, there are a couple of ones that Fitocracy

doesn’t seem to have yet. Entry for my racewalking I do by importing it from Runkeeper because that’s

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where my GPS watch uploads to. I do my workout and then I plug to Runkeeper and mostly that works

in Fitocracy but there are sometimes that the same run will get logged twice and I will have to go and

delete the run, but mostly it works well.

How does an app like Runkeeper compare to Fitocracy?

Runkeeper is more centered on the activities and on the health, it doesn’t have much of a social side to

it, it has a little bit of one so actually I like the cleanliness of the interface of Runkeeper and I like that

instead of getting props you click on an activity to find it “healthy” *laughs*but it doesn’t have nearly as

many exercises as Fitocracy has.

So Fitocracy is more all-encompassing then?

Yes, absolutely. For me the number one advantage of Fitocracy is that it has a better, more complete list

of exercises and it is nice to have the points and levels too, that’s kind of fun.

Speaking of those do you often go the extra mile to get one of the badges?

Yes, sometimes I’ll go looking through the list of quests. I think I did that with the Century Pushups, not

the one where you do it in one set, but the one where you do it in one day and I was just looking through

the list and I was like “oh, I can do this” and so I spaced it out, I did ten sets of ten with a nice break in

between, but it was something I might not have otherwise tried and the same thing with the “hundred

dibs” challenge.

Do you feel a sense of proudness if you accomplish one of those goals?

Yes I do, it’s fun to go “Wow, I just did a hundred pushups!”

I assume other people can also see your achievements.

None of the people I know in real life are on Fitocracy. I’d like to change that, but so far everybody

who sees a badge that I do is, well I can’t call that an imaginary friend, but you know what I mean...

Yeah a lot of people are in the same boat basically from what I can tell, have you tried introducing

it to friends?

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Yes, but I don’t want to be too overbearing about it. I think it’s just something I suggest to people if

they go “ooh, what’s that app you’re using? I’ll talk about it but I don’t try too hard to say “Oh, you

have to be on this thing.” I figure, it’ll happen when it happens.

Your friend list mostly comprises of strangers, do you often interact with those people?

Just to comment on one another’s workout – actually there are two people I know in real life that joined

Fitocracy, they logged a few workouts, but they didn’t come back and I think what happened and what I

think has happened was they joined right before they changed the mobile interface and the quest

interface and it kind of threw them for a loop and went “aaah, never mind.” I’ll probably try to get them

to come back and log their workouts.

As far as how I interact with the people on my friend list it’s either to just comment or prop their

workout. There are a few people who live in my state and we keep trying to arrange a meetup of local

people and go do something fun and I know they’ve done it a couple of times, but the cards have never

lined up. But I know we are using the groups to try to arrange an in-person activity with some of them.

So have you joined a lot of groups?

Not very many, I think somewhere…if you got just a moment there. Looks like ten-eleven. Cyclists,

Doctor Who, Fit Geeks, the Heroes group, Portland Oregon, Rice University, the Right Mindset, I

haven’t deleted the Welcome to Fitocracy yet although I probably won’t do anything there.

Are you a Hero Member at the moment?

I am.

What are the benefits?

To me it’s almost like a trick to get myself to keep working out and trying new things. There’s this quirk

of human psychology where we’ll value something more if we’ve paid for it. So there weren’t any Hero

specific features, that I was just dying to use, but they just periodically roll out these discounts and I

figured: “Oh, the next time one of those comes along, I’ll get it.” So I don’t know, I think it’s working.

Another member mentioned something like Dietbet, where people get paid to workout. He owns a

gym and was trying to get members of his gym to try it.

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There’s another website, called Beeminder and it’s not about diet or exercise specifically. It’s just about

personal goal setting and every time you fall off the golden path and you don’t manage to get your goal,

it charges money to your credit card and the more times you fail, the higher the number gets.

Do you think that’s an approach that could work?

Yeah I think so, at some point the amount of money will get so high that you will care about this, that’s

what the premise is. I think for it to work, it has got to be something that can be measured in an

automated way. If it’s self-reported, I think people can just go like “Oh, I don’t want to lose 30 dollars,

I’ll just say that I’ve walked ten miles today.”

Speaking of that self-reporting, do you think a lot of people cheat on Fitocracy?

It’s hard to say. I’ve heard people complaining about it, but I have no idea of what percentage of people

actually do it. I suspect it’s a pretty small number.

Are there mechanisms in place to prevent people from cheating?

There are mechanisms with that goal. There was one time someone posted something pretty gross and I

was figuring out what to do about it, so I “nuked” it from my feed, but when I was looking at the page

for what I’m supposed to do when I don’t want to look at something like that they were posting about

all the sort of things that can go wrong and one of the things on there was a button to report a workout if

you feel the numbers were suspicious so I think there is some self-policing going on.

Apart from that maybe there are some social aspects that prevent people from cheating.

Social pressure. Hopefully somebody would comment.

If you know a person in real-life or his e-persona you can maybe tell if someone’s posting iffy

numbers.

Right, like if I started logging 200 pound bench presses, they’d suspect that. The other thing is too that

we’re not getting prizes for the most points so if someone is cheating the only person they are cheating

is themselves so it doesn’t 100% prevent it, but it certainly is a deterrent.

Have your exercise habits changed since picking up Fitocracy?

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I’m working out a little more. I’m fairly active anyway, but it was around September that I got back into

weightlifting after a long time away and I was using Fitocracy just to track that and I was starting on the

machines because I’m easing back into it and I was going to free weights a lot sooner than I would have,

just because of Fitocracy because I wanted the variety and the points and so forth. So I do find myself

trying more things and maybe exercising a little more. Because I was already exercising anyway, so I

wasn’t just going from nothing to a lot of exercise but it did make me work out a little more.

Do you sometimes take advice from other members?

Not by directly asking, although I’ve read advice that I’ve used. Just in passing.

Do you think it’s easy to recognize valid or unsafe advice?

It’s hard to say, I’d like to think that my natural paranoia kicks in, for example I don’t directly take

lifting advice from what people say on Fitocracy, but if someone mentions a technique or a different

exercise, what I’ll do is, look that up on my own and read several different takes on it. That’s not to say I

can’t still do it wrong after I do all that, but I hope it helps.

Do you think it’d be a good idea to reward people who give good advice like a status?

Actually I think that could help, like a verified user or a verified bank account. Actually what I think

could work even more is if someone gives a specific piece of advice and write it up in longer form is to

let be part of the new knowledge center Fitocracy has started, or an official blog. I think if somebody

gives advice that’s good enough for Fitocracy themselves to kind of bless it and promote it on their main

source of knowledge, I think that would be even more effective.

Can you share a little more about the knowledge center?

I don’t know much about it, I just know that a few weeks ago they announced it as a new feature of the

site. It seems to be kind of like a blog, there were maybe a dozen articles on it and they were longer form

than a typical Fitocracy individual post and they would talk about Technogeeks and diets or stuff like

that. I think if I saw a regular user write an article that made it to that list, that would connote some sort

of validation that their advice is useful.

Is it available for everyone?

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Good question, I don’t know.

I think it’s Hero Exclusive.

Going back to the Hero Exclusive program, there’s not really a single feature you really value

very highly. Are there things they could add that would give it extra value for you?

Let’s see, I think about this a lot. The number one thing that I would like to be able to do is propose

exercises or quests or even achievements and if they had that in the future I’d consider that a strong

advantage. Especially if it’s about an activity that is I feel is very legitimate like propose a point count

for it and then first of all get assurance that it’s going to be in my list at least for things that I can add to

my workout. But obviously I don’t think people should be able to say “I’m going to drink a glass of

water and make it a 100 point per sip.” So to give some kind of validation and if that would fit I think

that would be a huge amount of value to get customized achievements and quests.

The other thing is data export, right now I don’t know if there’s a way can easily export a feed of every

activity I logged in Fitocracy, but I feel that’d be very useful. But I think they feel there’s a risk that I’m

just going to take my data and leave with it to another service, but if Fitocracy is a good website and I

think it is, they shouldn’t be worried about people leaving.

Is data import feasible at the moment?

I’m not sure if it’s able to bulk import, but it is able to connect to other services like Runkeeper. But the

export would be useful for me because if then if for example if I’m using another website to track things

that are completely unrelated to exercise you can imagine then I could give myself a total point score

based on Fitocracy points, plus my points for whatever else I’m using.

Some sort of achievement aggregator.

Exactly.

I’ve personally thought about things like that myself, but the difficulty is indeed getting reliable

feeds and APIs. Because if the site changes something that could invalidate the data.

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Yes. Another sort of user option for Fitocracy might be just an RSS feed. If I have an RSS feed with my

activity and what my friends are doing that would *unintelligible* so I think that would be a huge bonus

for the Hero membership.

Yeah I definitely agree. Say your profile vanished overnight, would you miss it?

Yes, because there’s value to me in what sequence of exercises to do on what day and what did I use last

time. So I think I’d miss the historical data for that reason.

And the social aspect, would you mind losing your friend list?

That wouldn’t matter as much, just because there are no people I’ve met with except for the couple of

friends of mine.

Do you feel the leveling up in Fitocracy mirrors your progress in real life?

Actually yes. I didn’t really expect it to, but I’m getting faster on the track at the same time as I’m

leveling up on Fitocracy.

Are there any possible demotivating aspects to people or yourself?

For me it’s only demotivating when the tool doesn’t work, like I mentioned the Runkeeper quirks, or

when workouts get logged to the wrong day and I have to move them, anything like that, it’s kind of

disheartening.

Reliability issues then. Do you often check the leaderboards on the site?

No.

Are leaderboards not an important aspect for you?

Based on the way that it’s measured, my workouts aren’t really hugely high point total workouts, so I’m

never going to be on the top of the leaderboard for that and then there’s the all-time leaderboard which

of course I’m going to increase my points all the time, but so are all the other people at the top of the

leaderboards so I don’t move around much on the leaderboards and as far as the leaderboards from my

friends. They logged very high point total workouts and they haven’t been back to the site in months and

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they’re still beating me in the leaderboards. Because the last leaderboard I checked logged for the last

ten workouts.

Could you suggest any improvements for it?

I’ve thought about it but I haven’t really come up with anything that would be any better. As I said the

two ways to measure are points within a time interval which I’ve never had too many points with and

points earned in the last workout, which I’ve also never had great scores on.

Another hypothetical question: say a similar app like Fitocracy were to be introduced in your

workplace?

I might be inclined to use it. Especially, coming back to data interoperability it would be great for

Fitocracy to have an RSS feed so that I could track my workouts in both apps, and it would just work.

Do you primarily use the site or the app?

A mix, probably about 4/5s app and 1/5 site.

Why do you use the site the most?

The app is the one I use the most. That’s just because it’s in my pocket at the gym and when I am ready

to move to the next set, I can look at the exercise I need to do and how many pounds I need to lift.

What are the motivating aspects about Fitocracy?

I think the point totals and badges and quests. So I didn’t originally expect it to be much of a motivating

site. I was using it purely for data tracking, but it surprised me.

Previously familiar with gamified platforms?

Yeah, I’d seen a few for other activities.

Such as?

Well, Beeminder I count and I tried, it’s a little like a gamified platform but it’s not quite as many bells

and whistles and badges. There’s an app like Superbetter and when I get a badge in Fitocracy, I’d like

that to be a badge in Superbetter.

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Do you think that’d be easy to implement, or would you have to scale stuff like the points?

It all depends on API quality and availability. I’m a little too lazy to write, you know, something that

would launch a full web browser and use automation techniques to click around on the screen, but if

Superbetter had, and I think it does, an API that I could write a very simple program that would add an

activity in Superbetter and also in Fitocracy I would love it because it’s something I could do in just a

few hours.

Yeah, that’s definitely interesting. How do you see the platform evolving?

I suspect that they’re going to add more social features and more promotional tie-ins, I think they have

deals and discounts with famous fitness people.

More towards celebrity endorsement?

Exactly and you know discounts and training services and food and gear. They’re smart to be making

those kind of deals, although that aspect isn’t quite as exciting to me personally, but I think it makes

sense for them to do it.

I’m thinking aloud now, but maybe they could go local, right now they’re mostly focused on the

American market. Maybe they could go a step further, like Groupon and try and make deals with

local gyms wherever.

They absolutely should be doing that because even worse than being America focused is that it seems to

be very California focused. So yeah I should be able to go to a local trainer, to my local pool and get a

discount for a season pass or something like that. That would be awesome.

Do you think it would be a cool idea then for the leaderboards to then integrate that at your local

gym.

Oh, I would love that. That would be awesome if we had a big TV up at the gym that everyone who had

chosen to opt in to the Fitocracy data sharing and show the highest ranking Fitocracy member there, that

would be really motivating actually.

The most hard working people could get a big sense of validation from that.

Uhu.

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Where are you based by the way?

I’m in Oregon, which is one state from the North of California.

Despite only being one state away you do feel the California focus excluding you from some

aspects?

Yes, I’d qualify that just as we’re talking about the deals, although I do think they have some East Coast

stuff, like for New York. But every once in a while I see “Ooh, we have some new Hero exclusive

deals,” and I go look and there’s not really anything I could use. Some of it is mail order I guess, like if

you’d want to get some yoga pants, but I don’t have yoga pants or need them *laughs*.

But yeah, as a European it’s sometimes really disheartening to see a lot of really cool services and

be excluded from the best services.

They really should hire regional deal makers around the world to set up stuff like that.

Do you think the prop system is a good way to filter the good information from the bad?

As a very crude first pass approximation, I’d say so when you 60 props next to it. You’d at least think

some people have tried that advice and liked it enough to express their feedback.

Is there anything you could suggest to improve it?

I suppose they could go to a moderator type system, where people who have used the site long enough,

who have their own post highly rated could have a moderator status and have their post marked more or

in a separate location. Like this post was endorsed by a Fitocracy expert.

Things that Runkeeper does well that Fitocracy doesn’t?

I like the fact that Runkeeper has maps, and I think that’d be really nice to have in Fitocracy. It’s such an

eyecatching visually appealing part of the site.

I think that’s all of my questions, is there anything important you’d like to share that hasn’t been

covered yet.

Can I add you on Fitocracy?

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Sure, thank you for your cooperation!

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Allie

What is your age?

I am 24.

Are you still studying?

I am waiting to convocate and I’m trying to make a job as a kinesiologist work. So kind of like a

personal trainer.

A little over a year now, but I was too busy over the summer, so I put a break in there

Have you tried any similar applications?

No.

Did you have different exercise habits before using Fitocracy?

A little, I had I did a regular martial arts practice, but when I started Fitocracy I found it to be extra

motivating to do extra workouts on my own.

In what way?

For the points, when I was close to a level I’d squeeze in a few extra workouts to get to the next level.

What sports?

Chinese martials arts: so Tai Chi and Kungfu.

Do you log each and every exercise?

Mostly, There’s some days that I forget.

Is it easy to input your sports?

Yes.

How would you react if your profile were suddenly deleted?

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I’d be annoyed, because I’ve worked up a lot of levels and I’m participating in the Smart Challenge right

now. So I don’t want to lose those levels or that Smartbadge. But if I couldn’t get it back, I’d be annoyed

but I’d just go for a run and start over.

Do you feel your leveling up in the app accurately mirrors real life progress?

Sort of. If I was consistent it’d be a better reflection, but I’ve had a few injuries that have set me back a

little so they don’t reflect as accurately as they could?

How would you change to make it more accurate?

Maybe if they had something that tracked your consistency or your one rep max or a small penalty for

not being active every day that would be a better reflection, but I don’t see people taking to a penalty if

you don’t exercise that often.

Is the social aspect important to you?

It’s kind of important. I really like being able to share ideas with people and ask questions because I

study physical activity and help other people when they have questions so they can work out safer.

Is it easy to identify correct knowledge?

Sort of, it can be hard to tell but from what I can tell, when people give correct knowledge people will

also give props to it more often. So if it’s something that has a lot of props, it’s probably correct.

Would it be worthwhile to reward these people with some type of status?

Yeah, that could help make it easier for new people to find people to give them good advice to help

them with their workouts.

Are you a member of a lot of groups?

I’m a member of about 8 groups I think, one is called Horse Stance, and another is called Wushu, which

was put together by a friend of mine who has since left the platform. One is the smart challenge, geek

girls, amazon wish list groups, where people like to send each other workout gear.

*connection interrupted, continued via IM*

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[5:40:06 PM] Nils De Jonghe: Connection seems to be really iffy, but I only have few more questions

left, if you don't mind I could just ask them via IM

[5:40:37 PM] allie.atter: My connection seems to be strange too, IM might work better than video

[5:42:05 PM] Nils De Jonghe: Do you primarily use the site or the app?

[5:42:28 PM] allie.atter: I mostly use the site. I do have the app for my phone, but find the site much

easier to use.

[5:42:43 PM] Nils De Jonghe: in what ways?

[5:43:14 PM] allie.atter: tracking an activity is easier on the site, and so is reading comments and

watching videos that some people post

[5:44:24 PM] Nils De Jonghe: are there elements from games that aren't currently implemented that

could make the app more fun?

[5:45:16 PM] allie.atter: I'm not sure. I am also not that good with technology and are not sure what

they could do to make the app easier or more fun to use

[5:45:42 PM] Nils De Jonghe: okay, no problem

[5:46:12 PM] Nils De Jonghe: how would you feel about similar applications being used by potential

awards to log employer performance?

[5:46:58 PM] allie.atter: Something similar to log performance might not be a bad idea, there are a lot of

people in entry-level part time jobs who need something to increase their motivation

[5:47:52 PM] Nils De Jonghe: would you think it's okay if employers started replacing monetary awards

with levels and achievements?

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[5:49:00 PM] allie.atter: I don't know about that one. Most people take jobs because they need the

monetary rewards for extra work. Maybe if it were possible to get a few achievements, and increase

your hourly wage by something like $.15 or $.25 an hour, that could work

[5:49:43 PM] Nils De Jonghe: a combination of traditional pay raises and gamification then

[5:50:14 PM] Nils De Jonghe: have you ever recommended fitocracy to a friend?

[5:50:47 PM] allie.atter: Yes, I have recommended it to a few friends. One started but stopped after a

month, and the others have not started.

[5:51:09 PM] Nils De Jonghe: do you know the reason why he/she stopped?

[5:51:39 PM] allie.atter: It might be because he is an international languages student, and wanted to

study, but that is just a guess.

[5:52:57 PM] Nils De Jonghe: does fitocracy take up a lot of your time? how many hours/week do you

estimate you use the app?

[5:53:52 PM] allie.atter: It does not take up a lot of my time, I am on it for maybe 2-3 hours per week;

less than 30 minutes each day.

[5:54:29 PM] Nils De Jonghe: that mostly covers alll the questions I've had, is there anything about

Fitocracy you think is important that you'd like to add?

[5:55:15 PM] allie.atter: I cannot think of anything that you did not already ask about, that seems to be

all the important things from fitocracy

[5:57:09 PM] Nils De Jonghe: maybe one last thing, seeing as you are planning to be a health

professional, do you think these kinds of apps will be used more broadly in your field?

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[5:57:57 PM] allie.atter: I would like to see some of these apps used more broadly in my field; it can

help people find extra motivation to train, and can help me track what they are doing and make

adjustments as they need them.

[5:59:09 PM] Nils De Jonghe: so you would probably recommend it to patients then?

[5:59:54 PM] allie.atter: If they wanted to train on their own, had smart phones, and seemed like they

were able to do some training on their own, yes.

There are some people that I would not want to see training on their own.

[6:00:15 PM] Nils De Jonghe: why is that?

[6:01:00 PM] allie.atter: Some people tend to push themselves too far and too fast, and can easily injure

themselves. Others only want to lift more weight or do more reps, and can injure themselves, and others

are afraid of training on their own.

[6:01:20 PM] allie.atter: I would not ask anyone like those above to train on their own, and would watch

to make sure they do not injure themselves.

[6:02:45 PM] Nils De Jonghe: if these kinds of people were to use fitocracy on their own, are you afraid

some of the achievements might cause similar things? By that I mean for instance push them to try

something that is currently beyond their safe skill level

[6:03:06 PM] Nils De Jonghe: like a beginning weight lifter going for the squat twice your weight

achievement or something like that

[6:03:45 PM] allie.atter: That is a good point. In that case it might be best to instead plan when we

could try to get the achievements, so the client knows that they can get them, but are still supervised.

[6:07:21 PM] Nils De Jonghe: okay, I think that covers all of it. Again thank you

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Neha

Age

25.

Are you a student?

Yeah so I’m in graduate school for programming.

What type of programming if you don’t mind sharing?

Science and engineering.

How long have you been using Fitocracy?

I think I joined in November 2011.

About at the start as far as I can tell.

Yeah, it’s something like that.

Where did you hear about it?

From my sister.

Since then you’ve been using it continually?

I’ve been using it continually.

Have you seen it evolving?

I think it changed in terms of the kind of people who are on it. Initially it was more I want to say, maybe

more successful people, who have more time or more money. Whereas now I think more regular people

have started using. Also when it first started there were more people who were modest about fitness and

nowadays it seems that there are more beginners coming in.

Apart from the userbase changing has the feature set changed?

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Well I didn’t really use it when it was in beta, but there wasn’t an app. It was just a website, the tracking

was pretty similar. Not sure if you’ve noticed but the quests have changed like you have to set you’re

doing a quest before you track it. Pretty basic.

Has there been a change in the way you’re using it?

I don’t think so, it’s the same.

Do you use the App/site or a mix of both?

A mix. Usually when I’m tracking I use the app, otherwise I use the website.

Which sports do you exercise?

So I weightlift, powerlifting, yoga and also some cardio tracks and kickboxing.

Do you track each and every one of those activities?

Yes.

Is it hard to maintain the discipline to do that?

No, not for me?

Is it easy to log those activities in terms of interface?

The cardio is very easy to input, but the weight lifting is a lot more logging, which is why I do it while I

work out instead of afterwards.

Before Fitocracy did you already do all these sports?

I did, but the way I weightlift was different. Before I got on Fitocracy I started learning about barbell

training and such.

Why change those habits?

Do you often find yourself following advice from people on Fitocracy?

Not really.

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Is it easy to pick out the qualitative advice?

No, not at times, especially in the healthy eating group people have very different views.

Would it be a good idea to give people who contribute quality info on a regular basis special statuses?

I do think that’s a good idea.

Do you think bad advice can be dangerous for some people?

I don’t know if I would say dangerous, but I do think that people need to be informed, just like anything

in real life, be it a social network site or otherwise.

Are you a member of a lot of groups?

I think I’m a member of about thirty. Lady lifters, ..

A lot friends?

I think I have about 400.

Mostly strangers.

Do you compete with those friends?

No. You mean like dueling? No.

Would you care more if more actual friends on there?

Yeah, I think so, because I often look at the few people I do know. I wouldn’t do that with strangers, but

I might with friends.

Is the stat tracking important?

I don’t think it’s that important. Just when you hit a personal record, but other than that It’s not

important.

Could achievements be a danger in that they might push people too hard?

Maybe, but like I said *unintelligible*

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Do you think people sometimes lie about their workout?

Yeah definitely I’ve seen some that are not possible, like running a thousand miles in one day.

How do you feel about people cheating?

I don’t think of it as a game

What are the most motivating aspects of Fitocracy for you?

I think other people posting and entering groups and that actually people can see you working?

Do you sometimes mirror yourself to other profiles?

Yeah I think it’s definitely motivating to see someone lift a lot of weight.

Are there any things about Fitocracy that might prove to be demotivating?

I don’t really know about demotivating, because for me if I see someone who can lift a lot more, for me

that’s motivating. Cheating could be demotivating if they’re actually not lifting that much.

Are there any things the platform is lacking?

No, I don’t think so.

Are you a Hero member?

I’m a hero.

Any extra features you find notable?

No, I do it more just to support the website.

Say all records of your profile vanished?

I think I would be pretty upset. I guess mostly because I paid for it, but it’s like I wouldn’t be able to see

my progress that I’ve made.

Would it impact your exercise habits?

I don’t think so.

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Friends lost?

No.

How valuable is the advice?

Yes, but I’m more used to getting advice from Fitocracy than for example a magazine.

Do you sometimes give advice?

Yes.

Do you get a sense of appreciation from that?

I think I do, usually people are happy when I give a comment.

Props genuine?

Yeah, a bit.

Employer using similar application in the workplace?

I wouldn’t be happy with that.

Danger that Achievements replacing monetary rewards?

I don’t know, I’ve not been in the workforce, so I’m not really sure.

Celebrity endorsements, how do you feel about that?

I don’t know I think in some respect it’s good that there’s actually a group that helps you lift. But some

of those things are kind of dated. It seems like they’re a bit fishing for money and making it less about

fitness.

Danger in that they’re fishing for more money?

I think they’re definitely heading in that direction.

Do they have to be careful not to pick the wrong celebrity?

Yeah, I think there definitely and that it’s different from the site

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Is there anything that could drive you away from the site?

I’m not sure.

I’ve pretty much asked all the questions I have, is there anything you’d like to add?

No, I can’t think of anything.

105

Michelle

What is your age?

I am 42.

What is your occupation?

Currently retired from the US military.

How long have you been using Fitocracy?

I started using Fitocracy in December of last year, so probably about four months.

Why did you start using it?

I found out about it through Facebook and just got online to check to see what it all involved, and I

found that there was a lot of good advice to better your fitness level and also your nutrition.

Did it change your existing habit?

I found that it did, I was already in a pretty good fitness routine but there was quite a bit of information

about how to improve that and how to make it less time consuming. By doing things in some ways,

suggesting stuff like doing more compound movements and less smaller movements, so yes it did.

Is it easy to pick out the most qualitative advice?

I believe it is for, me I’m currently lifting weights and that’s my main fitness routine, so when people

comment or provide advice it’s easy to go through their workouts and see what they’re doing and how

they’re doing it *unintelligible* and more credibility.

I didn’t catch the latter end of your answer.

A lot of people will provide links and supporting information of what their advice is and to me that gives

them greater credibility for what they’re saying.

Are props a good way of filtering the good info from the bad?

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I think so as well, because quite often people will prop things and comment rather than simply saying

“what he said, or what she said”. So it just lets you know that more people subscribe to that believe or

that thought of a better way of doing things.

Would it be a good idea to reward people with extra status or badge?

I think it’s an interesting concept, I never really thought of that. That would be a good idea, maybe to

have a badge or an identifying mark on their profile picture or something.

Do you often give advice yourself?

I do, in some of the forums. Usually to the beginners that are looking for places to start or things to think

about, just in the areas that I’ve had success in myself.

Before Fitocacy did you use any other applications?

I had not. There wasn’t any application that I found that gave the interaction level that Fitocracy does

and also had such a varied interest based that Fitocracy has.

How many groups are you signed up to?

*connection interrupted*

I’m back.

Last question I asked was, how many groups are you currently in?

I’m in 10-15 groups. I’m in Welcome To Fitocracy, Lady Lifters, Fit Angels, Weight Loss, Fat Loss, a

Minnesota group, which is a local group, Place to Vent…I’m in a Fitocracy Heroes group that you’re

automatically added to.

So you’re a Fitocracy Hero member, do you think it really adds something?

I think it’s more about supporting the application and gaining more capability as an application.

Any features in particular you really like?

I do, they compile your weekly statistics and give you emails and all of that on demand, so as far as

weight lifting goes I can see progression in lifting and what I’ve done.

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Do you register each activity you do?

I register my lifting workouts, I know some people use it for yard work or walking around the block as

well. But for me I’m only interested in logging the workouts that way I can try and improve each

workout that I do.

In some cases you’re awarded with something like a badge or achievements, are those important

aspects?

Yes. So I’m really only familiar with the weightlifting ones but it takes your body weight that you enter

in there and when you progress when you lift and say you lift 1.3 times your bodyweight, you get an

achievement for that.

Do you think some of those achievements can be dangerous as well?

In so far as pushing yourself in order to get that achievement, is that what you mean? I think perhaps for

some it might be, I’m not seeking out the achievement, for me I ‘m looking for the progression. That

there’s always some type of progression is the best way to put it.

Do you feel the progression in the leveling mirrors progress in real life?

I look at them as two separate entities. The leveling up for me is more of a consistency progression, I

just hit level 26 and each level is progressively more points, I’m not sure how their math works so the

leveling up for me is more of a consistency reward. Whereas my own tracking and personal records as

far as weightlifting goes tells me I’m progressing as far as my strength training.

How would you react it your profile were deleted?

I feel I’d probably be upset, because I feel like I was starting over, but in the end I would just start over

points-wise, because I’m still at the same fitness level.

Any particular aspects you’d miss?

For me the thing that I really enjoy on Fitocracy is when people share their own successes it’s kind of

motivational to keep you on the same path and keep you working towards your own goals.

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Speaking of motivational aspects, apart from those you’ve listed so far are there any other

motivational aspects?

I think speaking of my own experience as a female that lifts. I don’t really see a lot of that in my day to

day life out there. There aren’t that many women at my gym that lift, so the motivation that Fitocracy

provides me as far as seeing other women with the same interest and working towards the same goal,

really that’s the biggest selling point for me.

So in a sense, connecting with like-minded people you otherwise wouldn’t find in real life?

Correct.

Are there any demotivating aspects?

I think just like in any social setting where there is, on the internet or in real life, you will run into those

personalities that will rub you the wrong way, that annoy you. But it happens everywhere, all the time.

So it’s not necessarily demotivating, I guess just slightly annoying and then you just go on and

concentrate on the good aspect.

Do you think cheating occurs on a frequent basis?

I think it does, I’ve gone through and looked at the leaderboard on some occasions and there’s always a

few people at the very top that just joined yesterday and suddenly they’re level 37 and have all kinds of

crazy stupid points and I look at that like it’s them gaming the system and it’s very easy to tell and that

doesn’t factor into what I can achieve at all.

Are the leaderboards something you find important?

I don’t honestly go there that often, every once in a while I will and look through the top and look at

their workouts to see what they’re doing; to broaden my knowledge of different exercises and different

ways of looking at exercises. It’s kind of nice to see that, because it opens you up to new ideas and

things to try.

Seeing someone else’s progression curve can maybe comparable to what you envision for yourself?

Exactly, it gives you something to bounce your own of off and see how far they’ve come and maybe

give you ideas for what to go after.

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Are there any improvements you could think of?

I think and I think they’re trying to do that right now: they’ve hit a base of members and right now they

need to figure out what direction they want to take Fitocracy in, I see a lot of suggestions for things, but

I think they need to stick with the basic format of this is a way for people to track their workout and

level up. I think they need to include more exercises and also include better descriptions or videos of

those exercises, so when people go to track they know that they’re tracking their information accurately.

There are a lot of different very specific exercises and sometimes there are only approximate

exercises in the database.

It’s a worldwide application so I think that adding videos, so that people that don’t speak English that

and heck even I can’t even figure out some of those moves from those descriptions and English is my

primary language so.

Form can be very important.

Yes.

Because if you do it wrong you can and probably will hurt yourself.

Yes, at some point you will.

Do you feel the current descriptions are inadequate and might facilitate people hurting

themselves?

I don’t think the descriptions themselves lead to people hurting themselves, I think that sometimes

people try and go heavy. And that’s when their form breaks down and that’s what hurts them.

Directions you wouldn’t like them to go to?

I think they’d be making a mistake if they went into some kind of nutritional tracking application,

because there are so many other apps out there that do it and do it well that people can use, I think it

would be a redundant capability and not the best way for them to spend their money.

In essence, find what working now and not try to go very broad?

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That would be my suggestion, because they found a niche, they found success in this one specific

section and I think they just need to keep improving it, rather than broadening it.

Is celebrity endorsement a good direction to take?

I think the Arnold Schwarzenegger one was wise, I don’t think they need to do many more that that, he’s

a well-known name in fitness and lifting in particular. If that helps people to get interested or at least

identify a face with an activity I think that’s a good thing.

Do you think it could backfire? Like if they had picked Lance Armstrong?

That’s definitely possible, and that’s something they’d need to vet very well and very thoroughly before

doing it.

Competitive aspect important?

I guess I wouldn’t call it competitive, for me anyway. I compete with myself, and seeing people who lift

more than I do and get more points that just drives me to do more and try harder and not necessarily

compete with them, but to realize that it’s possible.

Your friend list comprises mostly of strangers, would it be different if you had a lot of real life

friends on there in how you’d interact with them or your level of competitiveness with them? I’ve

had people answer that right now they don’t really care about leaderboards but it would be

different if they had close friends or family on Fitocracy.

Oh really, I’d never thought about that. I guess that’s interesting, maybe it’s because I’m a little older

and my friends vary so much in age I can’t really say that it would make a lot of difference to me one

way or the other.

How valuable is the advice on Fitocracy compared to other sources?

I find that Fitocracy kind of leads me to those other sections and opens up other doors to me to research,

I kind of look at the advice on there as a pointer : like think about this, or give this a try and then I go

research it and see if it’s for me or not.

Good gateway to other qualitative sources?

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Yes. That’s the way I look at it, yes.

Almost through my questions, are there important aspects of the platform that you think is

important that we haven’t talked about yet?

I don’t think so, I think your questions have covered a wide array of what I use Fitocracy for.

Thank you for participation.

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Rachel

Age?

28.

Occupation?

Right now I’m a stay at home mom, but normally I do administrative work.

How long have you been using Fitocracy?

I joined in December, so I’ve been using it for about four months consistently.

How did you hear about it?

I saw one of my friends post it on Facebook, he also uses it occasionally and I had been looking for a

workout tracker. I hadn’t really been working out too much at the time, but I was looking for something

to track and keep me accountable. So I just joined based on my friend’s list basically.

It definitely changed your exercise habits then?

Yes, absolutely. It’s like completely than it was before. I’ve always enjoyed working out to some degree

or another but I got out of the habit when I got pregnant, he’s now a year old. It’s been about two years

since I worked out consistently and before when I worked out, I also worked out in a completely

different way. Fitocracy not only helped me get consistent again, it also helped me learn a whole bunch

about how to exercise more efficiently.

Can you elaborate on that? In what way is your workout different now?

Sure and I can talk about this a lot, so you’ll have to almost stop me from talking too much. So that’s

why I signed up for this interview. So, before I’ve worked out most of my adult life in some way or

another, so before I was like a lot of women. I’ve done a lot of cardio, I took a lot of exercise classes. I

really enjoyed those actually and I did find them to be very motivating such as spinning, you know, I’d

take Zumba and things like that. They were all a lot of fun, but I never saw much of a big change in my

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fitness and I’m not really in it for losing weight. I’m losing too much weight normally, I tend to wear my

weight pretty well. So it’s more for the fitness aspect and I did use some weights, but I kept my weight

pretty low and I would use a lot of the machines at the gym and I just never really questioned what I was

doing, I was just kind of assumed that because all of the advisors said that what I was doing was good I

just kept doing it even though I didn’t see many results.

So then I got pregnant, had my son and about two years passed in between and I wasn’t working out at

all at that point and when I found Fitocracy I kind of decided to re-educate myself on fitness because I

realize that it hadn’t really been effective before. I wanted to learn, I kind of wanted to start all over,

from the beginning. So I started doing a bunch of research, not just on the website but it kind of spawned

research for me and I led me to learning to lift weights, heavy weights. Like learning to use free weights

in the gym and things like that. So that’s what my main workout is. So I incorporated some high

intensity training with the cardio I was doing, and I’m still doing some of the cardio I was doing just for

fun now and then. But I see a huge difference in my fitness level, only a few months into it. I’m still

pretty new at it. I dropped all baby weight, in no time, and I’m seeing huge differences in my fitness

now.

I reckon you take a lot of advice from Fitocracy, is it easy to pick out the quality advice from the

lesser quality?

That I think is probably the biggest issue for someone who is brand new at exercise. Since I did have

some knowledge to work from already I think it’s easier for me to know, to be able to tell who has done

their own research already who already knows what they’re talking about based on their workouts and

the progress that they’ve made so far. But I think that’s one of the biggest hurdles Fitocracy is going to

face is figuring out how to manage groups advice based on that. So I think I’ve been doing pretty well,

weeding out the good advice from the bad advice. But it’s probably an issue that will face a lot of people

who are brand new.

Do you have any suggestions to mitigate that problem?

Yeah, that’s kind of a tough one cause you want to keep it as an open forum. I think that’s part of what

makes it great, it’s a social media site. Anyone can chime in. I think what they’ve done already by

creating the knowledge center, which is brand new, so there’s not really many articles up there yet. I

think that’s their first step in trying to combat that problem, so that beginners can go to the knowledge

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center first and hopefully read articles about people who are actually professionals. They know exactly

who’s writing the articles. They have all the proper certifications and then they would get the

information from a source and they could break it down in a very detailed way.

One of the problems, I think, you get with the advice on Fitocracy is that even when you get it from

somebody who knows what they’re talking about. They’re usually only going to give you a snapshot of

the answer. Because the answers themselves are usually quite complicated and they have like a science

and research base to them and they can only give you a short answer so it’s bound to be missing some of

the picture. So it’s only going to answer part of your question even if they know what they’re talking

about. I think they need to find a way to get beginners on there first.

Maybe they’re experts, but maybe only in a certain niche that may not be appropriate for your

workout or your body type.

Exactly! Exactly, and they don’t know who they’re talking to. They can’t look at your experience or

how old you are or if you have injuries and that can be kind of dangerous.

Would it be a good idea to give out to reward people who consistently give good advice a badge, or

maybe to address the problem you mentioned to give them specific expert badges, like weight

lifting expert or cardio expert or even more specific things.

Right, that’s actually a really good idea. It hadn’t quite occurred to me, but it’s one thing if you have I

don’t know it on their profile, but if you could create it so that when you comment on somebody’s

question that it has like a special I don’t know star or something like that, that denotes it right next to

their profile name and picture. So that when you’re reading through the comments you could maybe see

who is a verified expert in the comment answers. I think that would be really fantastic actually.

Because that would be kind of a good way to keep people who are not experts, but maybe have some

knowledge commenting, but also let people see who knows what they’re really talking about the most.

That’s a good idea.

And maybe for those people, it’s an extra status boost.

Right, if yeah you could get extra points or something like that. People love that on Fitocracy.

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Speaking of those points. Have you often found yourself actively working towards one of the

Fitocracy achievements or quests?

Yes. In fact I just did one, not today but in my last workout. Specifically because I wanted to achieve the

quest. Not because it was part of my workout to begin with. So I’ve been doing a lot of the beginner

ones, because I still consider myself to be a beginner. I think I’ve achieved most of the ones for weight

lifting. So it’s definitely been kind of motivating and it helps me pick out new exercises to try that I

haven’t tried yet. That’s actually what this last quest did for me. It helped me learn how to do the row

with the barbell. So that was kind of cool.

I also found myself if I’m close to leveling up, but I haven’t quite made it quite there I’ll use like an

excuse to extra exercises just to level up.

Another question about the achievements. They really push you to do something. Could that

actually be dangerous In some cases?

I actually have seen a couple of times where I’ll see somebody who has done a full body, really intense

workout and then also then about to level up and have like an extra 500 points to go: I’ll just go out and

get those 500 points. But that’s not really a small feat actually if you’ve just done a full body workout.

So I do think that there can be times where it can be like very dangerous. Especially for people who are

really competitive by nature.

So I’ll say that actually I’m not a very competitive person. I’m like the least motivated by competition

person that you’ll meet. So Fitocracy helped me develop a little bit of that competition. Mostly with

myself, but even so, I’m not the kind of person who’s going to do a really intense full body workout and

then try to earn the extra 500 points so I’m like a little too lazy for that. I see that that could be a risk for

some people, but I think I love to work out, but I’m a little too lazy to go that far.

Do you sometimes check the leaderboards?

I actually don’t. I think I’ve done that by accident a couple of times, but I actually try to compare it with

myself. Especially because I am such a beginner and because I’m not terribly competitive. I mostly want

to see that I’m increasing my weights and I am getting more points just to show that I’m improving just

because I’m getting more points because I’m getting more points. I think I kind of like the idea of

leveling up too so I do use that for myself a little bit.

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Do you think the leveling system actually mirrors your progress in real life?

In some ways. I actually think that I’ve just reached level 14 today and I reached level 13 like with my

last workout, so basically I’ve got level 14 within a workout and a half I think. And I felt like that was

maybe a little bit too fast given that I’ve been off Fitocracy for a little while, so even while I was glad to

have leveled up I was thinking I feel like I maybe should have worked a little harder for that.

I know that they do increase the number of points that you need as you go higher and higher and higher.

I have a feeling that what they’re probably doing is that at my level right now this is where they start to

lose a lot of people who get tired, so that maybe they decrease the number of points between levels to

get you excited again. So that’s my theory on why I leveled up so quickly.

Could be. Hadn’t thought about that. Normally it scales, but they could look at the data and see

the points where people fall off the wagon.

That’s proof of that.

Could be.

Could be. It’d be smart though if that’s the case.

Before Fitocracy, had you used any similar applications?

Nothing that was very effective. I had asked some friends for advice so I tried using My Fitness Pal but

it’s terrible for that kind of thing. I also tried the Livestrong app and I tried a lot of things, but none of

them was what I was looking for. I really did want something that would hold me accountable socially

and I had never considered that there might be a social media app only about fitness. I guess I was

thinking it would integrate with Facebook, but this was way better. So when I found out I was more like

this is what I was hoping to find.

Do you have a lot of friends on Fitocracy?

Not that I know in real life to be honest with you. Only the person that I found Fitocracy from in the first

place. That’s the only person that I know in real life on Fitocracy. Everybody else I follow, or who has

followed me is technically a stranger.

That’s the case with the bulk of people I’ve interviewed so far.

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It’s very interesting, because when I first joined I couldn’t get anyone I knew to join because it’s a very

specific interest and I was really confused as to how I could get more friends and I remember posting

about it and somebody who was one of my random followers at the time – I only had like ten a the time

– she told me basically you just follow who you’d like to follow and is was like: “Oh!” So it opened up a

lot more that way, but I actually kind of enjoy it more that way.

In what way would the experience be different if you had a lot of your real-life friends following

you?

It would, you know, sometimes I kind of would like to get them interested in it, but I feel like people act

a little bit differently on Fitocracy than they do on, say Facebook. Not because they’re being fake

necessarily, in fact they may even be more real in a different way and that’s why I feel I can talk about

fitness in ways my other friends would probably roll their eyes and be disinterested in it. So it might be

different if I had more friends who were interested in it too, but also I don’t know I guess because I

know that I can seek out people who have different kind of experience I can seek out different types of

advice from them. That’s kind of interesting, and people do end up talking about other things than

fitness too. So you get to, even though it is all like online, it’s not like a close relationship, you do get to

hear things and experience things differently than you would if it was just the same circle of friends that

you have on Facebook.

Yeah of course, are you a member of a lot of groups?

I am, I actually am surprised, I looked at my profile and I’m in about 60 groups. It’s a lot. I’m actually

not very active in a lot of them. I only regularly post in about ten of them. Some are not terribly fitness

related. The Misfits is one, a new group for women lifters, Lady Lifters, for sure and I use those two

mostly to ask questions about lifting weights for women. I post in the Beer and Fitness group a lot,

because I enjoy beer *laughs*. Also the healthy eating is probably one of the more active ones and I also

do the vegetarian one mostly to get ideas about how to get vegetarian protein in.

So those are some of the more really common ones. Let me see if I can think about another one. Well

the WTF, Welcome To Fitocracy is obviously a good one too, but everyone’s in that one.

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The women lifting one is really interesting to me. Not to sound sexist or anything, but do you feel

more welcome at such a place than at places like Bodybuilding.com or other sources you had tried

to find advice before?

No that’s a great question actually. I have to say that since joining Fitocracy and reshaping my view on

fitness I was pleasantly surprised that I don’t find that much anti-women sexism there as I expected to,

which is good. I actually do use things like Bodybuilding.com. I only use their forums, but I do use them

a lot for their form videos, which I find to be quite good because of their explanations about how to

perform the exercises. I mostly use the women lifters groups I was talking about if I feel if it’s

something that might be specific to a woman’s body, or if it’s something that might be suited to a

woman’s experience in a way, or if it might be because women do tend to have sort of a lighter weights,

just because of physiology that I feel like a man might never have experienced before. So I use it for

those kinds of things.

I’m asking because I was really kind of pleasantly surprised to see so many active groups for

women, whereas I didn’t really know of any places online that drew a large crowd of females.

It’s true and I think we’re just starting to see the beginning of a women’s strength revolution in a way.

And we can really see that in a group like Girls Gone Strong, which has a presence on Fitocracy, but

also has their own site. It’s a combination of woman trainers and *unintelligible* but I think you’re

right. There’s very few places online outside of the groups on Fitocracy that are easily accessible and I

think that there is clearly a need.

Yeah, because you mentioned before that when you lifted in the past you didn’t really try picking

up any heavier weights.

Right.

Was that because of the advice you were given before or the stigma that women shouldn’t use

higher weights, lest they transform into the Hulk.

Yeah, I’d say it’s both. I was reading a lot of women’s fitness magazine. I don’t know if you have them

where you are but Shape and Self are very popular here for women to pick up and I guess I assumed that

because they were women’s fitness magazines that the advice given would be good and a lot of the

advice in there was – you know they’d recommend strength training routines that would use maybe ten

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or twelve pounds at the most at several repetitions. And when I wasn’t referring to those magazines and

I thought I was doing things on my own, I would just use the circuit machines, you know the isolation

machines at the gym because it was so easy. I didn’t have to ask anyone what to do and I thought there

was a stigma anyway for women to go over to the free weights area.

There’s always this idea that men are like throwing weights around and grunting and stuff like that,

which does happen, but not as much as I think people think it does. So I just never wanted to venture

over there. I think all of those things combined led me to a really ineffective way of working out. It was

only when people kind of told me that “Hey actually, you can go over there. Even if it makes you feel

uncomfortable, you can still be there.” And then I was like “Oh, that’s a good point.”

Another thing that I’ve heard and I don’t know if it’s really accurate, is that a lot of women seem

to be afraid that the second they really start pushing themselves, they’ll start to look like Arnold

Schwarzenegger or something like that.

That’s probably one of the biggest problems that we’re going to have in changing women’s minds about

lifting weights, because I guess they see these rare images of women bodybuilders who when they walk

around on an average day they don’t look as built as they do on those pictures, but women don’t know

that, they assume that you know they pick up like a barbell of any size and suddenly they’re going to

bulk up. So we need to convince them and that’s how we can convince them is by showing up and doing

it and going; “Hey, I still look like a normal woman, just stronger.”

Yeah.

Or we can convince them otherwise.

Yeah, probably.

Do you primarily use the iPhone app, the site or a mix of both?

I do use them both, but I use the site more often and I think especially because I do comment on the

groups and stuff like that quite frequently and I think that the app is really better and mostly for usage

just in the gym after your workout.

If you do a lot of commenting, a keyboard is probably a lot faster and more hassle -free than…

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Exactly and there is also a lot of going back and forth between pages if you want to just surf it. So I

mostly use the site, when I can and even when I do track using the app, I’ll usually have to go back in

later to finish my workout. Because I get kind of tired of tracking everything, so that’s one of the

downsides.

Is it hard to bring up the discipline to track every workout?

No, because I like the points.*laughs*Oh that’s probably because I am still kind of new but I’m still kind

of new and I have no other method of tracking, as opposed to someone with an Excel sheet or

something. So it’s my only method of keeping tabs on what I’m doing.

Yeah, that was actually my personal issue with the app. I really like stats, but they should come

out automatically *laughs*

There are definitely things about it that I feel like could be a little bit easier. I’ve only started saving my

routines, so I don’t have to type in everything each time, so that’s a bit helpful, but yeah I know what

you mean. I don’t find it to be the most useful while I’m in the gym I find it to be useful outside of the

gym.

Yeah, because I can imagine that it takes up a bit of time during your exercise.

It does actually, I was thinking I’m wasting too much time on the app *laughs*, so I’ll just plug it all in

after the fact.

A question about the props system: do you often give props?

Yeah, oh yeah I give props. I say I give them frequently, but to be honest with you there are people who

are better about it than I am.

In what way?

I do try to check people’s activities frequently, but I don’t get through that many people as I can. So I

give props when I can and I love receiving them so I know that the giving is one of the most important

things on Fitocracy because it’s amazing how even though it’s so easy for us to do, it tends to mean so

much to the other person, which I really think is really cool. So I do try to give them as often as I can.

That was actually my follow up question: whether the props you receive feel genuine or not?

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They do, they do. You know and you can definitely tell that certain people especially when you follow

each other for a while, people who are really good about not just propping you randomly but making a

point of trying to pump you up with the props or something like that. They see that you’ve been lagging

for a little bit. It really works, like I’ve literally gotten off my bed because somebody gave me a whole

bunch of props, like “oh wow, they’re right, I haven’t worked out in about three days.” So yeah, it’s

worked.

That’s cool. You’ve mentioned a lot motivating stuff about Fitocracy, but are there things about

Fitocracy that might prove to be demotivating?

Hmm, I have seen a lot of people comment, especially on the WTF group that they get frustrated by I

guess they see people who are so advanced. There are a lot of people who are on there who are advanced

lifters especially and they have had plenty of time to develop the body that they want, you know, the

weight that they want to lift…that kind of thing. But I hear a lot of people who are new that get

frustrated with that, and I think especially that can happen if you are maybe a bit more competitive than

I am and I understand where they’re coming from obviously. But I think maybe if it had some context –

this person has been doing this for years – you know, it might be more helpful, so I think that maybe

while I love the fact that everyone’s mixed together, maybe for some people that could be demotivating.

I haven’t found that to be demotivating for me. Let’s see, every once in a while, and this is true for any

social media site or forum you have people who don’t have as positive an attitude, and me, I’m generally

pretty good about that but I can think of a few people in particular who occasionally can be kind of

negative if you say you don’t want to lift weights. You know, and that’s fine if you choose not to and

they kind of act like, that’s the only right way and if you’re doing anything else, you’re wrong and it’s

like, I personally prefer to think that if you want to work out and you love working out anyway that’s

better than not working out at all. So I imagine that for people who prefer a different kind of exercise

that’d be really demotivating as well so I think that is a shame.

Okay. So you mentioned the early adopters kind of have an edge over other people. Do you think

that’s a problem that could worsen in the future as Fitocracy goes along?

Hmm. I think that’s interesting because It’s pretty new still even the big gaps aren’t really all that big in

the grand scheme of things. So it’ll be interesting to see, I think that Fitocracy is going to have to add a

few more gaming elements to it in the future if it continues to grow and that’s what they had planned

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originally but it didn’t end up quite happening that way. But I think they’re going to have to add some

more gaming elements so that people can realize that these people have really worked a long way to get

where they are. I think when you just have the levels it can be a little bit confusing. It’s hard to see the

full picture, so I could see that potentially be a problem if they don’t insert more gaming elements.

Any gaming elements in particular you would like to see implemented?

I’m trying to think of something offhand, if I could I would totally send them a message about it. But I’ll

say for one thing, when the founder did his Ask Me Anything on Reddit not too long ago, a lot of

Redditors apparently were very upset that Fitocracy had not included all that they had not included all

the gaming elements that they had originally said they were going to. So that would be kind of

interesting to see what some of those suggestions were and if they could maybe implement some of

those, but I can’t really come up with anything. I’d have to think about it a little more.

Maybe something like a class system could be a good idea. That you work towards a sort of class, kind

of like a way of leveling the playing field. That you can go for another class afterwards, where you start

again with zero experience. Maybe something like that.

Yeah. Totally and that’s actually a really good idea and something that somebody who’s played video

games would be better at to answer because actually I don’t even play video games, so I’m like, I don’t

even know. So yeah, I think that would be a really good idea of creating not just levels, but also bigger

hurdles to go through as well, so it sounds good.

Do you see the platform evolving in any other way besides what we mentioned now?

Let’s see. Well definitely I think that to stay competitive they’re going to have to implement some more

Facebook like features. I don’t want it to look like Facebook, but just things it doesn’t currently have.

Some things that are more powerful on Facebook and things that people have come to expect, such as

chat. I think chat is probably going to have to become something they’d want over time. They’re trying

to do like the Kick Messenger, but it’s really too complicated, so they’re going to have to admit things

like that in the future and let’s see…

Another thing, definitely they need to work on how to introduce new members to the site, because I was

pretty confused when I started. I was lucky because as I mentioned before I asked for help based on the

few followers that I had when I was new and they really helped me orient myself and people tend to do

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this a lot. And then you see people outside a lot who tend to get really irritated by people asking the

same questions over and over again. So I think Fitocracy needs to have a better way of showing people

who are new like an orientation almost and I would love it if they could make them stop at the

knowledge center first, so that like we were talking out earlier they incorporate that as being the first

place to go for more information as opposed to just asking random people in the groups. So I think that

would be very good, some sort of an online orientation for basic questions and things like that.

Let’s see if I can think of anything else that would be good to improve on. This is just a personal

preference, but if they could figure out some way for people to stop saying they’re following back,

because I know that a lot of people are saying they’re following back and I know that I’m not the only

person that finds that frustrating. So I don’t know how you could control that kind of thing, but I would.

You mentioned the chat, I was actually surprised that private messaging is actually a Fitocracy

Hero exclusive feature.

Right, yeah. That was pretty new too, because I’ve only been a Hero myself for only like a month or

something and that came in the time since I was a Hero, so it’s pretty new.

Seeing as you’re a Hero, are there any features the Hero status adds that you really appreciate?

You know, I almost, the main reason why I did it was because Fitocracy had helped me so much, was

because they were running that special where it was 30% off. So it was mostly just to support them, but

they do send a weekly email with your performance in it, which has actually been really nice to have,

it’s like a snapshot of it, and you can actually also access it through the site but just getting it in your

inbox means you don’t have to worry about checking your weekly stats. So I have actually really

enjoyed that. I got really excited about the private messaging but to be honest with you, I haven’t even

used it just yet. But I could see myself using it in the future for sure. I think that’s really the only thing

that I’ve gotten so far. I mostly did it to support the site.

I think you listed most of the features actually, better analytics, the private messaging…

…and I think duels is what you can do, is the other one. But I haven’t done a duel yet.

You said you signed up to support the site and that’s actually a thing that I’ve heard from a lot of

people, that they don’t necessarily want the extra features; they just wanted to support the site.

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Yeah, you know, to be honest, if they had strictly just been asking for donations I probably would have

contributed the same amount and I do that for a couple of other sites that I use really heavily that I find

that I personally have gotten a lot out of and I also admit that I use Adblocker on my browser. So I know

there are ads on there, but I never see them, so I know that they’re not getting any money from me, so

it’s the least that I could do for them.

You can whitelist some sites.

Oh, I didn’t know that.

The Fitocracy Hero thing is one of the more commercial things they’ve added right now. Do you

see anything changing to the approach of commerciality of the platform in the future?

Hmm, let’s see. Good question actually.

Like the celebrity endorsements, is one thing.

That is a good point, I didn’t have too much of an issue with the whole Arnold thing. I don’t know why.

I guess because I know that some people were actually upset because they thought that he wasn’t

terribly involved in it. However if they were to do more, like a whole bunch of celebrity endorsements,

I’d actually think that I would get turned off of that after a while.

That’s also something that I’m not too terribly in to. Not just in fitness, but just in general. Mostly I

think because it brings people to follow just the celebrity because they’re a celebrity and nothing else

and I’m not a huge fan of that. So that is something I might be a bit concerned of. I guess I haven’t seen

too many hints yet of them becoming too money-grubbing or anything like that.

There was one other instance I had myself, where I was approached by a personal trainer or

nutrition coach to sign up for some sort of program. At first it sounded like a really great deal and

such…

Hmm…I’ve heard a lot of people talking about that. Now that I’m thinking about it, I remember a little

while ago, I stumbled upon something of a personal trainer’s profile on Fitocracy, which I’m okay with

trainers having profiles when they’re just using it to track their own workouts. You know, basic social

media and whatever, that’s all fine with me. But once I started following him I started realizing that he

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was using it as a way to get you to support his business, which I understand, but at the same time it’s

really obnoxious.

It’s kind of an annoying, but also I guess kind of to be expected, but given the fact that I could unfollow

him, it gave me a sense of control. If it became different, like your approach, as well. That is weird.

It was weird because as far as I can remember, she was introduced via Fitocracy?

Was it Sohee Lee?

Yeah, exactly. It was Sohee Lee.

I got a feeling about it. I had a feeling.

Did you hear about that, or receive a similar email?

I didn’t get the email, but I had heard of a couple of people having some funny interactions with her too.

Like similar to what you described and it kind of rubbed me the wrong way.

It felt off.

Uhu, yeah it didn’t sound right to me, and that’s something that’s been like a question mark for me

because I don’t know exactly what her relationship is with Fitocracy and I’m okay if they’re teaming up

with trainers that they think are legitimate or something. But I kind of wonder if she has a more personal

relationship with them because she seems to do that sort of thing more than other people do.

I’m actually looking at the email now and she was introduced through Fitocracy. *reads part of

the email* It’s the way they approached me…

I don’t like that, I don’t like that at all.

If stuff like that were to increase in the future…

I would think that I would have a problem with that and I, probably what I would do personally is, I

would call them out on it on the site as harsh as it may sound. But I think when other people see that this

is happening they’re going to get a lot more flack for it. If you respond with an email, the only person

who’s going to see it is them, that’s what I’m trying to say.

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Publically shaming them?

In a way. Well I say it, but that’s part of social media. Recently a friend had problems with an airline

and I suggested to her she tweet the airline because I know of people who have gotten things resolved

via tweeting versus say the traditional way of emailing the company. “Just to say, hey guys if you want

to that, if you want to act this way, that’s cool, but I’ll let everybody else know.” So that’s kind of what I

think about that. It hasn’t happened to me, but I will definitely be keeping a close eye on something like

that because I’m not a fan of that either.

Is there anything that could happen that could radically make you abandon Fitocracy?

Hmm. That’s a good question…radically. It’d have to be pretty drastic, I could definitely see something

happening slowly over time, if the atmosphere started changing because that’s probably why I like it.

Because of how positive I find my experiences to be, so it would definitely be a slow change that could

drive me away. For a radical, overnight, I would probably have to see something really crazy happen.

Such as what I was kind of getting at before, where people could feel like they’re not welcome if they

say that they want to do cardio, or do anything other than lifting really.

People who push their opinion as an absolute fact?

Right, so if suddenly that became such a huge issue, especially if it came from the people who work at

Fitocracy. I’d probably have to stop because even though I work out in the way they consider to be quite

right, I believe that encouraging people to become active is better than not active. Getting down on

somebody because of their current level or something like that, that kind of thing eventually I wouldn’t

be able to tolerate. It would have to be somebody acting really out of hand.

Say if your profile were to vanish overnight, suddenly. How would you react to that?

You know I actually saw someone who had that happen to them. I don’t know if he was hacked in or a

technical bug, but they restored his profile fairly quickly. I was really pleased to see how they handled

his situation, I would definitely be frustrated for sure, but I would give them the chance to either try to

restore my situation or bring me back at around the same level I was when it was deleted.

But more in a hypothetical sense, if it was gone forever?

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Yeah, that’d be sad.

What are the things you’d miss most?

Oh, if Fitocracy just ceased to exist? I would miss, what would I miss the most? It’d honestly be having

a place where I could be completely nerdy about my fitness questions with people who at least wouldn’t

think that I’m crazy. Because on Facebook I can ask a few friends for opinions on certain things, but for

the most part they don’t really care or know. So even if Fitocracy for some reason took away the

workout tracker, that’s what got me into it in the first place and I really do like that tracker I think if it

was suddenly gone I would more than ever miss having a place to be nerdy about fitness with other

people.

Is it an easy way of finding like-minded people you otherwise maybe wouldn’t find in real life?

Yeah because you can definitely can find people who like to work out or whatever but even within

people who work out, it’s hard to find people who work out the same way you do and that there are

people you can use as inspiration, that’s really hard to find in real life and on other sites such as

Facebook, so I definitely found I have a lot more access to that sort of thing on Fitocracy.

Would you miss your activity log?

I would, I actually really do like the log, when I get more advanced I probably will need something in

addition to it. But I do actually like the way it works, I like the way the app works, and like I said it has

the analytics that I would never conduct on my own. It has stuff that makes it fun. So even though the

points don’t always mean a ton to me, it does help for those times when I think “Well that workout

wasn’t the best workout I’ve ever had” and you hit submit and it calculates and you see your points and

you’re like “Wow, hey…that was actually pretty good.” So it can be really nice.

Another hypothetical question: how would you feel about similar application invading the

workplace? Say your job whatever it was started using an application to track or monitor the

things you do at work.

That would be really cool actually, it’s interesting you should mention that because I was actually at a

job interview this Friday at a company and they were talking about something sort of similar to that. Not

with leveling up, I don’t think they have gotten that far in their thinking, but something that kind of

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tracks and reports back to you. Not so that you could get in trouble for the kind of work you were doing

or anything, but something so that you’d know how much time you spent on certain activities and if that

matched up with what your goals were and I thought that was really interesting that they were going to

implement that. So your version sounds to me like even more fun, as it has the levels and I recently

found like a to-do list app that does the same thing when you level up, so personally I would find that to

be really motivating.

The whole concept of leveling up is actually really fascinating to me, because as I said earlier I don’t

really play video games and I know that they took that concept from gaming. So this is brand new to me,

but I actually found it to be motivating. I’ve tried to loosely apply that concept to my life. So I don’t

actually have levels for myself because that would be way too much work but I do kind of use it to guide

myself in whatever I’m doing. Fitocracy has actually helped me reshape the way I think about my work

and my personal life too. So yeah, that’d be great.

One of the problems people have with what I just outlined is: what if they start replacing

monetary rewards with stuff like badges and achievements?

I would say no, I would hope not. I wouldn’t find it to be that motivating to replace my actual salary and

benefits like insurance and things like that.

But if it was added to that, you would really…?

If it was added to and if it maybe had an effect on like a bonus. I can definitely see that being part of it.

But I would just use it as an internal motivator and like if you win and get the most points in a month,

you get a day off. That kind of thing I would like but I agree, if it started to be actually replacing my

salary, I would not want that.

I think if it’s geared mostly towards the reward side, it’s okay but there are other instances where

like they track cashiers on how many items they scan in an hour and if they don’t get a B grade or

an A grade they’re in trouble.

I had something similar, I used to be a supervisor at a call center where we had a similar tracker that

would track the calls you took and how long you spent on each phone call and you know if you didn’t

meet a certain combination of numbers we wouldn’t get fired, but we’d have to talk about our goals. So

I wouldn’t have a problem with something like that if they used the system that way, but if you’re on the

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job and they’re tracking your how much you’re working and how effective you’re working or whatever

it is and sometimes you get points for doing really well that seems fair because when you’re on the job

and you’re not doing very well and you get points taken away I think that’s okay. As long as it’s not

necessarily taking away from your base salary and people suddenly can’t rely on how much money they

are getting. But it could affect like your annual performance review, if you could factor that in. I’m okay

with that idea.

A good balance between the carrot and the stick then?

Yeah *laughs*. Basically.

I think we’ve covered most of my questions so far, anything you’d like to add that hasn’t been

covered so far that hasn’t been covered so far?

I can’t think of anything else off the top of my head, but I hope that was helpful.

It was really helpful actually, thank you for participating.

Natasha

Age?

I’m 23.

Are you still a student?

Yes.

What do you study?

I’m a first year graduate student. Primate behavior and ecology .

Interesting. That’s really rare I think?

Yeah it’s the only primate graduate program in the US.

How long have you been Fitocracy?

I just signed up last month. In April, it’s not even a month.

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Excellent, you’re the first fairly new user so far. All the others had been using it for at least 3 or 4

months I believe.

Yeah, my friend told me about it. I’ve always been really active I played a lot of sports as a kid and he

just said that I might like this because they give a lot of tips and it’s a great kind of forum. It’s not just

beginners, it’s not just crazy workouters, it’s kind of everybody. So he said I’d enjoy it and I do.

What sports are you currently practicing?

I’ve played tennis since I was five and I run, but I also go to the gym to do like fitness classes and I’ve

also been a dancer since I was seven or eight and I did other sports as a kid too.

Do you log each and every one of those activities?

In terms of Fitocracy I usually only list the ones that I do, I haven’t played tennis since I joined, I go

running every once In a while and when I’m at the gym I log my workouts through Fitocracy.

Do you log every workout you do at the gym?

Yeah.

So far it’s not hard to keep up the discipline?

No in terms of my studies and my day to day activities the gym is kind of the place I can relax and not

feel stressed out. I try to get to the gym as often as I can just for stress relief.

Do you log every activity?

Since I do classes it’s hard to log every exercise we do in the class. If I’m not doing a fitness class, then

yes I log every individual exercise.

Any suggestions for future Improvements you might have?

I guess I do exercises that aren’t necessarily normal, like when I do my solo exercises I do a lot of

exercises like weighted ball exercises and there’s not a lot of those options to log on Fitocracy. And just

because I enjoy classes more than anything, I feel I get a harder workout when I take a class, but I get

less points for it.

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It’s not reflected in those points?

Yeah it’s not.

Should the database be expanded to include those exercises?

Yeah, I mean definitely. There’s a lot of females and women on the site and like in my gym there’s

usually only girls in the classes. That’s usually how it is in that women enjoy classes.

Would it be a good idea for Fitocracy to partner up with some of the bigger gym chains and for

example list the official class names and such?

You know what that would be a good idea, because they could probably gauge the work that’s actually

being done in the classes and have that reflect in the points.

Maybe the coaches could help decide how many points you should be awarded for something?

Yeah.

Before Fitocracy had you ever used any similar applications?

No I haven’t.

Would you consider using similar applications?

I don’t know I actually haven’t been involved with a team sport since I graduated from high school,

which is about five years ago.

So I mean I don’t know as of now probably not because I log into Fitocracy and that’s nice. It might be

nice to find a forum to find women to play tennis with or something.

iPhone app or the site?

I use the Droid app.

You’ve only been using it for about a month, but say your profile were to be deleted how would you

react?

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I enjoy Fitocracy, so I’d probably be frustrated and confused. It’s fun to see what other people are doing

and I would probably be a little annoyed.

Specific aspects?

Honestly, it’s kind of a motivator. Like to get to the gym and work out. It’s like a game for myself. I

could play with the points and see what I can do. SO I’d probably miss the fact that I could play with the

points and see what I can do.

Work towards achievements or quests?

I haven’t done any achievements yet, I’m currently looking into some of them and see if I can do them. I

definitely want to try some to see if I can do them.

Do you feel the leveling up in Fitocracy mirrors your progress in real life?

No.

Is that because a lot of the activities you do aren’t listed and thus reflected maybe?

That’s exactly what it is, the points I gain don’t reflect how hard I feel I’m working and just the fact that

I can’t log some of my activities.

Could the achievements also be dangerous in some ways?

I definitely think that there’s certain achievements where you could easily be prone to injury if you do

them incorrectly. They could add a correct form and tips on how to correct your form and that’d

probably be helpful, because I do have some lingering injuries from the years of doing sports. I know

my own body limitations, luckily I’m not new to this, but someone new who is new may not know what

they’re doing and could easily injure himself. I know my body limitations and I can easily tweak my

form or to the healthiest or not do an exercise because I know it’s going to bother me. But I feel when

someone is new and they started doing them all, they could easily be prone to injury so.

Speaking of such things do you often give advice or take advice from other members?

I’ve given out advice in terms of, there are a lot of people on there who have like weight loss goals and

they’re wondering what’s the easiest way to lose weight and or what to eat, and I’ve given some advice

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because I never had to lose a substantial amount of weight, but from being active I just know the best

foods for certain types of exercises and from the many amount of times I’ve gone to personal trainers or

worked out with my friends I happen to have a lot of knowledge in that area.

For average members, do you think it’s easy to pick out the good advice from the bad?

Good question, I’d say probably. Because you usually get a substantial amount of people telling you

advice and so you tend to see patterns and if you see outliers that are very away from the norm of what

people are saying, then I think yeah it’d be easy to pick out the good from the bad.

How valuable is the advice on Fitocracy compared to other sources?

I like that Fitocracy is very much like a fitness coach in that they’re motivating, but it’s also like tough

love like you did great, but you could do better. I don’t really read fitness magazines that much I just

know that when I have an injury, a lot of times I’ll just Google it to see like if there’s certain things I

should do. I’ve asked people on Fitocracy about injuries on Fitocracy and I’ve gotten better advice on

Fitocracy than when I google it. Because I have lingering knee injuries and tendinitis in my left arm and

I’ve gotten better advice about how to not so much adjust my form, but what the best pre and post

procedures are to help out the pain.

Prop system good way of measuring quality?

Yeah, I like the props system. It’s fun.

Do you often give out advice yourself?

Yeah.

Does receiving props feel genuine?

Yeah, I think so. I mean like when you level up you get a lot of props and that’s: good job, whereas

when you do something stupid, you don’t really get a lot of props.

What direction do you see Fitocracy going?

In terms of what?

In terms of added functionality or the social aspect or other things like that.

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I think it’s definitely a good site for people, not just bodybuilders, it’s a great forum for newbies who not

necessarily don’t know what they’re doing. But starting at a gym is very intimidating, so I think it’s a

good place for people to…you have a lot of people there to support you from all around the world and

it’s really cool, I’ve gotten a lot of really interesting exercises from see what people have done I just ask

them, you know: how do you do that? How does it work? So you’re getting this good social aspect and

you’re meeting all these, you know all these active, fit people from around the world. And then you can

also vent your problems, if you’re having a gym problem, you can get supported, you can find new

exercises. I think it’s a really good site, and I think it can only go up.

Do you follow a lot of members?

Yeah, I don’t know how many people, but I follow a good amount.

Any people you know in real life?

One girl I went to college with and then another that…the friend that turned me on to the site. So, that’s

it. I’m trying to get a couple of my other friends involved, because a couple of my friends are just

getting into the gym scene. So I told them that they’d like it.

If they’d all decide to join, would you feel competitive towards them?

Our friendship is very much , we are very competitive towards each other in who could do better in

what, if they joined and if they were easily able to get to my level, then I’d probably feel very

competitive. But it would be like a friendly, fun , competitive thing. But I’m a naturally very

competitive person, so it’s not surprising that I am competitive with my friends.

At the moment that’s not really the case then, because not a lot of friends have joined?

My one friend from college, I haven’t seen any of her logs so I don’t know if she’s done much of

anything yet and the friend who turned me on works a lot so he doesn’t have that much time to go to the

gym. But if a lot of my friends joined I probably would be more competitive towards them.

Are there any things that can be demotivating?

For me the whole point system is kind of demotivating, because like for me I work really hard and I did

really well, but then it doesn’t reflect in my points, so that’s kind of demotivating. It’s like: “Did I really

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not work that hard or do classes just apparently not count. There also people who do a LOT of exercises,

just in one session. They’re lifting like a lot more than you and it’s very intimidating to see that. You

want to say like: “Oh that’s so awesome, great job, look at what you can do”, but it’s also like “Wow,

I’m never going to be able to do that.”

Maybe because you joined rather late in the game there are a lot more profiles from maybe last

year, that have a lot more activities logged, that might be intimidating for new members.

Yeah.

Say a similar application were to be introduced in your workplace. How would you respond to

that?

I think that would be great, especially because in the US we are such a high risk for obesity and

everything and then you could get some sort of friendly competition. It’s you your own self working

towards a goal and you’re playing with your coworkers.

Say it also logged metrics relevant to your job?

I don’t know I feel like that would be a little, when it’s fitness it’s not so much haha I did better than

you, it’s just a motivation for you to try and do better. I just feel like it’s look I worked a lot better than

you and I’m better at my job. It could create a lot of bad relationships if you did more than just the

fitness thing.

Another danger might be that your employer starts replacing monetary rewards with badges and

points.

Yeah *laughs*

Could happen, I think.

Yeah.

Has using Fitocracy changed your attitude towards exercising since you started using it?

No I’ve always had a really good outlook on exercising. I’ve always had an active lifestyle instilled in

me from as long as I can remember. My parents always had me doing something sports related, but then

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I started enjoying the sports that I was doing so I just wanted to do that sport, I wanted to get better at

that sport. So that meant I went to the gym and I was lifting and I was running and I was doing all these

extra-curricular activities to get better. So I’ve always had a good outlook on it.

It’s more supplemental then.

Yes.

Is it a good way to discover new exercises?

Yeah, definitely.

Have you changed your routine in some ways?

I’ve started going more, I don’t know if that’s Fitocracy related or because I’m a graduate student who’s

constantly stressed out, so I started going more.

Do you think people often cheat?

Yeah it wouldn’t surprise me, because you’re like: “Oh I want to get those points, I want to get those

points.” It wouldn’t surprise me if there are people out there who are trying to make themselves look

better.

Do you think that’s easy to tell when looking at someone’s profile?

I don’t know, like people who post progress pictures, you can definitely see the progress, and then you

can believe those people, but then there’s people who also post progress pictures and their progress feels

slower, but then they have this massive amount of points.

How do you feel towards those cheaters?

It’s kind of frustrating, because not only am I being honest, but I’m also working really, really hard and

the level of my workout isn’t being reflected in the amount of points that I get and not only am I seeing

these great changes in my body in the last like two weeks and there’s people who don’t have the same

results that I do but have a lot of points and that’s frustrating. Because I’m working really hard and

you’re not working as hard as me, and you’re getting more points.

Are there any features besides those that Fitocracy is currently lacking?

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Well…no. I like it so far.

Are you a normal member or a hero member?

I’m a Hero. My friend signed me up. I wasn’t a Hero member at first, but it was like within the first

week or so. Hero’s definitely nice, that’s for sure. I like the private messaging I think.

Would you consider signing up again if it expires?

Yeah, probably.

Is there anything I haven’t mentioned that you feel are important?

I don’t think so, I think you’ve covered kind of everything.

I hope you enjoyed the interview, thank you for participating.

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Nike+ interviews

Tom

Hoe frequent heb je de applicatie gebruikt?

Ewel ja, in het begin deed ik dat één keer per week dat ik ging gaan lopen tot dat ik opeens een paar

maten overtuigde om ook zo’n ding te hebben en dan wordt ge zo’n beetje gechallenget eh, en dan heb

ik wel een beetje gefreakt. Een maand zo maar dat heeft maar een maand geduurd, want dan waren we

allemaal ’t ende en hadden we allemaal zeer. En dan is dat eigenlijk heel snel weggevallen. Dan ben ik

weer alleen zo gelopen en dan is het vooral zo bijhouden en handig om te zien dat je beter begint te

lopen, dat kan je zien. Hoeveel keer ik het gebruikte, zag je aan Twitter, dus je werd ervan op de hoogte

gesteld, je was gaan lopen je sluit je iPod aan op de computer dat stuurt dat door naar die servers, mijn

twitter hingt daar aan en dan werd dat onmiddellijk gepost.

Kreeg je daar veel reacties op?

Als er belachelijke runs opstonden. Ik had een keer zo met mijn schoen gewoon zo gedaan en dat ding

had dat ook upgeload. Dusja 100 meter, maar ja nee eigenlijk van gasten die lopen zo…Op de website

van Nike wel, daar kwam er wel veel reactie op je kon je bijvoorbeeld inschrijven op een challenge,

bijvoorbeeld 40 km lopen op één maand, bv in januari en haalde je dat kreeg je een medaille of virtuele

beker en dan wordt er getoond in welke ranking je zit, maar het ambetante daaraan was dat er ook

mensen tussen zaten die veel meer lopen dan dat, die bijna een marathon per dag lopen die deden daar

ook aan mee, dusja die hadden onmiddellijk die badge…weet wel…dat het niet meer redelijk is. Dus die

schreven zich overal in in die dingen, van weet wel 40 km doen 50 km doen 60km doen maar het is een

beetje belachelijk zo, dus dat zorgt ervoor moesten de challenges beter gedefinieerd zijn, zou ik het

zeker langer gedaan hebben eigenlijk. Ook met die maten eigenlijk omdat dat ook zo beetje het gevoel

geeft van je gaat vooruit.

Wat bedoel je met beter gedefinieerd?

Wel dat is het juist, moesten ze zeggen van, we zien vorige maand heb je 100 km gelopen op een maand,

je moet niet zeveren en meedoen voor die 40. Wij beginnen van 0 en moesten we aan 40 geraken is dat

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een voldoening eigenlijk, en dat is allemaal goed en wel, maar er zaten er dus een paar tussen dus, de top

3 was eigenlijk gasten die dat in twee dagen haalden.

Zou het beter zijn mochten ze iedereen opdelen via rankings als brons, zilver en goud en de

challenges daar rond te bouwen?

Ja inderdaad, dat was iets dat ze zwaar te kort hadden.

Werkte het voor u dan demotiverend om profielen te zien waar je u niet realistisch gezien mee kon

vergelijken?

Ja dat was het, zo lang die gasten niet in uw challenge komen was er geen probleem. Je kan ook wel

privéchallenges maken, dat maakt het dan wel geestig. Met drie vrienden heb ik in die maand dat dan

gedaan. Ik ga gaan lopen, zij krijgen een berichtje dat ik hen heb ingehaald, dus wat doen zij ’s avonds,

hup schoenen aan en gaan lopen. Ik krijg een berichtje…Dat was constant “battlen”

Met je vrienden was er dan minder niveauverschil?

Ja, het was voor iedereen uitdagend om 40 km in een maand te lopen?

Je kon niet op voorhand voorspellen wie ging winnen?

Ja het enige dat ze eigenlijk als voordeel hadden als ze nu juist een lange tour hadden gedaan, en het zat

in die periode dan werd dat erbij gerekend. Maar dan spraken we af, we gaan daar volgende week aan

beginnen zodat je niet kan foefelen met datums, want er zate wel fouten in, ik had gezien als je de datum

verzet dat je kan foefelen met kilometers, je kunt gigantisch foefelen.

Denk je dat er veel mensen valsspelen?

Ik denk het niet, ik denk dat ze eerder vals spelen op een eerlijke manier eigenlijk. Dat ze effectief gaan

lopen, maar ze kunnen de sensor iets wijsmaken, dan opeens lieten ze de dingen toe, lieten ze iPhones

enzo toe, en dan heb ik het eigenlijk niet meer actief gedaan, dus ik veronderstel dat vanaf dan wel

zwaar naar beneden is gegaan, want je weet wel, je zit in je auto en je schudt wat met je telefoon.

Zijn er dingen die mensen tegenhouden om vals te spelen?

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Nee, incentives om ervoor te zorgen dat je eerlijk speelt? Nee, dat heb ik eigenlijk niet gezien; qua

gamification kunnen ze op dat vlak nog serieus wat leren, maar het is intussen wel al een jaar geleden

dat ik het gebruikt heb, dus er kan wel het een en ander veranderd zijn.

Juist, dat was wel tof bv er was ook zoiets waarbij je land tegen land, provincie tegen provincie, en mijn

maten waren van West-Vlaanderen en dan liepen we Oost-Vlaanderen tegen West-Vlaanderen, dat was

ook geestig, het is een tof principe maar ze moeten ervoor zorgen dat er minder in kan gecheat worden,

want vroeger kon je bijvoorbeeld manueel runs ingeven zonder de meting van sensoren.

Zijn er sociale mechanismes die cheaten tegenhouden?

Welja, ik bedoel, als je opeens ziet van 1 naar 10 kan je effectief de run zien, dus je ziet bijvoorbeeld de

liedjes waar ze naar geluisterd hebben, dus je weet wel redelijk goed dat er niet gefoefeld was, omdat je

weet dat het met die sensor was, maar ik zeg het van zodra ze die iPhone app er aan koppelden zonder

die sensor, en ook in hoeverre is die sensor correct. Die moest geconfigureerd worden en toen ik dat

bijhield met mijn iPhone merkte ik dat ik op 3 km een halve kilometer meer. Ik vind dat ze rechtlijnig

moeten zijn, maarja dat was omdat ze iedereen toelieten. Ik denk vanaf dan dat Nike+zijn

monopoliepositie wat is verloren met concurrerende apps als Runkeeper en Fitbit.

Hoe was je sportgedrag voor Nike+

Ik deed praktisch, ik deed niets. Het was echt een van de redenen dat ik begon te sporten, om dat ik die

achievements kreeg om vooruit te geraken en dat hielp. Maar het is ook gebonden aan, het is zoals Xbox

Live, als je alleen bezig bent zonder friends, dan ga je niet echt met die points bezig zijn, maar als je

verschillende vrienden hebt die dezelfde games spelen en ze halen die bepaalde achievements ben je er

wel mee bezig. Als je ziet die persoon heeft je ingehaald op een challenge en je moet maar 2 km meer

lopen dan werkte dat.

Vond je dat de vooruitgang in de applicatie je echte fysieke vooruitgang weerspiegelde?

Ja, ja zeker weten, dat zie je ook op de grafieken, je kunt dat perfect dagen vergelijken je ziet hoe het is

en dat je beter aan het worden bent, en je voelt het ook effectief. Juist dat was er heel effectief. Ik liep

rond met een kleine iPod, daarin zat er iets in dat communiceerde met mijn schoen voor de sensordata te

hebben, ondertussen hoorde ik bv “you got one km” ze zeggen dat de hele tijd, de eerste keer stelde ik

het in voor 3 km te gaan lopen en dan is er een stem, een man of vrouw. Ik moet efkes denken want de

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vent was een heel slechte keuze, dat was Armstrong. Die heeft mij meermaals proficiat gewenst voor

mijn record te verbreken en dat werkt, NU als ik hoor van Armstrong zijn doping dan, dat maakt het wel

anders. Want ik heb het eigenlijk niet meer gebruikt sinds dat is uitgekomen. Interesting.

“Armstrong speelde vals, dus hij heeft gelogen tegen mij.”

Ja, dat is het, het is een beetje zwak uiteindelijk, maar dat is het wel, als ze u de keuze zouden geven van

ik ben fan van die sporter of die sporter dan zou het echt wel werken om er meer persoonlijkheden in te

steken. Want dat werkte wel heel goed, ook als ik op de knop drukte dan zegden ze mij welke snelheid

ik liep en zo leer je heel makkelijk je eigen tempo. Want ik heb vroeger ook wel geprobeerd om te

beginnen lopen met Start to Run enzo, maar het was daarin veel moeilijker om mijn tempo aan te

nemen. Terwijl hier kan je het zelf controleren, mezelf monitioren, je gaat minder rap lopen, je gaat echt

veel stabieler ritme aankweken en puur door de statistieken en wat er u gezegd wordt, het was veel zo

dat ik hoorde dat er nog een halve km was en dat je expres nog wat meer te doen, want het was heel chic

om op je grafiek op het einde dan nog zo’n piek te zien. Het omgekeerde gebeurde jammer genoeg ook

soms. Het ding stopte op het moment dat jij de knop stillegt, dus wat kwam je tegen je bent gestopt met

lopen en bent wat aan het wandelen dan kijk je daarna op je grafiek en zie je daar 2 minuten gestrompel

opstaan en dat haalt heel uw tempo naar beneden. De basis zat goed, en het gaat echt om kleinigheden

om het beter te maken.

Zou Nike kleding verdienen voor avatar personages een goede beloning zijn?

Voor sommige mensen kan dat zeker werken denk ik, maar ik ben daar niet zo mee bezig. Dat

interesseert mij heel weinig. Ook op Xbox Live, doet dat mij niet veel.

Wat vond je dan wel belangrijk in je profiel?

Mijn ranking tov mijn vrienden, die medailles die erop stonden…maar vooral je eigen progress

eigenlijk. Dat je ziet dat je langer gaat gaan lopen, dat je er een kortere tijd over doet, om het te

vergelijken met anderen. Dat was voor mij het beste.

Wat als profiel gewist werd?

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Ben dat een paar keer tegengekomen dat het verkeerd geconfigureerd was, dat ik hem niet op de juiste

pc had aangesloten, de data wordt doorgestuurd and it’s gone. En dan is het eigenlijk hnn ik heb voor

niets gelopen en ik had wel “vree” dat gevoel.

Zou het ervoor kunnen zorgen dat je zou stoppen met lopen?

Ja, dat is wel in die periode gebeurd, wie weet had dat er inderdaad wel iets mee te maken. Ja, het is

mogelijk. Ja, je wilt dat alles dat je loopt dat moet erin komen Ik had soms zo dat ik het spaarde, expres

om die maten te ambeteren, want zij deden dat ook. Want, je weet wel “ik sta acht km voor en opeens

laadt je het in een keer op en dan schiet je ze voorbij. Dat deed je soms wel een keer.

Waren er al Facebook cheers?

Dat is ook met de iPhone, maar ja mij lijkt dat eigenlijk nutteloos. Want terwijl je bent aan het lopen dan

ben je niet bezig met zo’n cheer. Wat wel heel goed was waren de liedjes, je kon een Power Song kiezen

en wanneer ze zien dat je vertraagd wordt die power song opgelegd, bij mij was dat een liedje van de

Bloody Beetroots en daar zat ook wat tempo in en je weet het ook dan als je het hoort dat je moet

versnellen.

Ging je soms expliciet voor bepaalde achievements?

Toen ik de app gebruikte kon je nog niet zo veel doen dan, je had wel een hoop challenges zoals Oost-

Vlaanderen vs West-Vlaanderen, of meer beginnen lopen en zo snel mogelijk aan zoveel km te geraken.

Dus ik en een maat hebben op een gegeven moment zelf achievements erin geprogrammeerd zodat het

wat geestiger ging zijn. We hadden het ingesteld dat we de data inlazen en dan kreeg je bijvoorbeeld een

achievement voor de eerste kilometer, dat hebben we een klein beetje voor onszelf gedaan want dan

kwam je thuis en kreeg je een lijstje van de dingen dat je verdiend had. Tof gedaan, maar we hebben het

niet verder ondersteund.

Veel logging automatisch, mocht je zelf moeten tracken zou dat lastiger zijn?

Dat zou ik niet doen, het is belangrijk dat er een neutraal mechanisme dat alles doorgeeft en dat vind ik

dan ook het probleem met de iPhone. Als je het doet voor jezelf ben je eerlijk bezig, maar op een

bepaald moment moet die controle er zijn. Ik denk die dingen om te starten ok, maar om te blijven

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doordoen is het heel belangrijk dat er een neutraal ding is. Bij applicaties waar je zelf logt zou het een

goed idee zijn om samen te werken met fitnesscenters en dan de team leaders, de coaches enkel de data

mogen ingeven, dan is het wel weer in orde, maar er moet een neutraal ding zijn.

Er zijn ook mensen die misschien rap verbloesemen wat ze gedaan hebben.

Zeker weten. Zeker weten.

Mocht er op je werkplaats een gelijkaardige applicatie zijn die je op je werkplaats trackt, wat zou

je daarvan vinden?

Eigenlijk zou ik onmiddellijk nee zeggen, ik ben daar heel erg tegen. Je moet eigenaar zijn van je eigen

data. Bij die Google Glass is dat bijvoorbeeld ook zo dat gaat grote problemen geven. Ze kijken naar u

en zij zien uw gegevens. Daar zijn ze compleet verkeerd mee bezig, Ik vind eerst, jij probeert mijn

gegevens te bekijken, dan moet ik ook zien dat jij probeert om bv mijn run gegevens te zien vooraleer je

dat kan.

Moet er een opt-out zijn?

Ja dat vind ik, maar dat gaat niet gebeuren omdat ik daar bezwaren op heb.

Je kan gamification technieken op alles toepassen, ik heb daar eens een heel mooie talk over gezien,

iemand van DICE. Hij gaf bijvoorbeeld als voorbeeld, je bent een boek aan het lezen en je krijgt

bijvoorbeeld een achievement voor uw 50ste boek te lezen. En dat gaat nog verder gaan, zegt hij want

waar we nu niet aan denken, maar de volgende generaties gaan uw gegevens allemaal terugvinden. Dus

mijn kind bijvoorbeeld, zijn 50ste boek dat hij gelezen heeft, ik ga eens iets belachelijk zeggen “Tini gaat

naar de boerderij” of pakweg “Ontdekking van de hemel” daar zit een verschil in klasse in. Dus mensen

gaan zich anders gaan gedragen, naar de regels van die software.

Gaan mensen zich dan mooier proberen voorstellen dan ze zijn, denk je?

Ja en daarom is het net zo belangrijk om neutrale sensoren hebben om zulke dingen op te vangen. Die

software moet dat zo goed mogelijk doen.

Wat als financiële incentives op de werkplaats vervangen worden door punten en badges?

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Volgens mij gaan we daar allemaal naar toe, binnen tien-twintig jaar. Maar ik vind dat allemaal niet zo

correct dat iedereen zo maar gegevens van u verzamelt en dat vrij mag verdelen. Maar eenmaal dat

allemaal zo geïmplementeerd is, dat zo gaat getrackt worden dat jij aan een machine staat en er wordt

bijgehouden hoeveel dingen jij per uur doet dan gaat de volgende werkgever waar jij wilt solliciteren

toegang hebben tot die data en puur op basis van die data beslissen of hij die persoon aanneemt. Op zich

zou het een goed principe kunnen zijn, maar iedereen moet eigenaar zijn van zijn data. Maar volgens mij

gaat dat in alles komen, in auto’s, op uw werk en zo verder.

Wat ik mij ook afvraag. Nu is dat ook allemaal geestig omdat dat nog speciaal is, maar ik vraag mij af of

het op een gegeven moment is, maar eenmaal alles zo uitgedrukt is, gaat dat dan niet omgekeerd

beginnen werken?

Als je zelf ervoor kiest kan het motiverend werken, maar ik denk als het opgelegd wordt, kan het

demotiverend worden. Want bijvoorbeeld als de snelheid van scannen aan de kassa gemonitord wordt zo

dat de kassiers zodanig snel gaan beginnen werken dat ze zichzelf in de miserie werken. Ik denk dat die

daar op termijn schuw van gaan worden. Of je gaat misschien mensen hebben als er nog vakbonden

bestaan die onderling gaan afspreken niet te snel te werken.

Kort samengevat, wat zijn meest motiverende en meest demotiverende elementen?

Niet neutrale sensoren vond ik niet kunnen, dat werkte ambetant bij mij dat mensen zich konden

inschrijven voor challenges die voor hen te makkelijk waren.

Motiverend vond ik de persoonlijke stem tijdens het lopen en hoe je je eigen data kunt controleren. En

de friends. Als ik één ding moet kiezen dan is het de friends, want wanneer die wegvielen hield mijn

gebruik op. Ik ga nu misschien weer pushen en als we alle drie weer zin hebben om te lopen, gaat dat

weer gebeuren. Maar de friends zijn het belangrijkste want die maand dat we echt hebben doorgezet was

echt geestig. Het meest belangrijke is het sociale.

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Christophe

Hoe lang Nike+ gebruikt?

Da’s een heel goede vraag, ik denk dat ik Nike+ al een jaar heb gebruikt, ik ga eens zien of ik dat nu kan

controleren ik heb de applicatie hier nu bij mij. Ik heb al iets van een 700 km gelopen, sinds begin vorig

jaar.

Hoe gebruik je de applicatie?

Ik heb die Fuel Band, de applicatie, en een sensor in de schoen, maar die gebruik ik amper tot nooit.

Maar die fuel band die heb ik natuurlijk elke dag aan en voor te lopen gebruik ik die applicatie. De

sensor in de schoen gebruik ik minder omdat dat enkel goed is om binnen op de loopband te lopen. Ik

loop heel weinig op de loopband, dus dat haal ik er niet uit om te gebruiken en dus is het een beetje

nutteloos in mijn zicht omdat ik gewoon veel te veel op straat loop.

Hoe frequent gebruik je de applicatie?

Gemiddeld is dat vier keer in de week. Ik ga om de dag lopen dus ik ga maandag lopen, woensdag,

vrijdag en dan een dag in het weekend. Sommige weken is het elke dag?

Heeft het gebruik van de applicatie je sportgedrag veranderd?

Het heeft sowieso een positieve invloed gehad. Ik liep sowieso heel weinig en ik ben ermee begonnen

puur om te trainen voor de ten miles, maar dan door die applicatie ga je toch altijd zoiets hebben van die

geeft je dan feedback en die zegt je hebt vorige week beter gelopen dan deze week of wat dan ook. Je

wilt sportief zijn en je wilt jezelf ook verslaan, als je te horen krijgt je hebt vorige week beter gelopen,

dan wil je toch die extra kilometers doen.

Vrienden die de applicatie gebruiken?

Niet veel, ik heb een vriend en Sam, een collega. Die gebruikt het ook maar veel minder.

Dan heb je niet echt competitie met die mensen?

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Nee, want ik heb nu bv het scherm hier open en ik heb bv deze maand 110 km gelopen en Sam 29.7 dus

ze halen mij niet in. Ik denk om eerlijk te zijn mochten ze wel dicht in de buurt komen dat ik nog extra

moeite zou doen. Het is allemaal een beetje een spelletje hè en het is gezond en toch wil ik altijd een

beetje extra doen en soms loop ik misschien wat te veel dat ik mijzelf iets te veel aan het uitputten ben

en dat is door die applicatie misschien een beetje.

Zijn leaderboards belangrijk?

Nee niet echt. Ik zie nu toevallig als ik het hoofdscherm open doe, hoeveel ik heb gelopen en wie van

mijn vrienden meeloopt, maar voor de rest kijk ik niet echt of ik bovenaan de ranking sta. Ik moet nu

wel zeggen met de Nike Fuelband is dat anders. Mijn vriendin heeft er ook één en ik heb nu wel de pech

dat zij door de week meer doet dan mij, dus die haalt altijd meer Fuel dan mij en dan probeer ik en effort

te doen, maar dat haal ik nooit meer in.

Zijn Facebook cheers belangrijk?

Nee, ik post dat heel graag nadien, want ik ben dan altijd wel tevreden en als je snel loopt krijg je

achievements in het spelletje, dus dat is altijd wel plezant om dat te krijgen. Maar ik post nooit vooraf,

altijd nadien als ik begin te lopen, als ik heb gelopen. Maar wel als ik begin op een andere applicatie,

Path, dat is gekoppeld aan Nike Fuel maar daar zit niemand op dus niemand houdt dat in de gaten.

Waarom achteraf?

Dat doe ik een beetje toch omdat ik beetje paranoïde op dat vlak ben, puur omdat ik deel niet graag

onmiddellijk als ik vertrek uit veiligheid, want iedereen kan dat zien dat ik niet thuis ben ook inbrekers

bijvoorbeeld en ook op dat vlak doe ik dat niet graag. Achteraf als ik thuis ben kan ik dat altijd wel

posten, dan voel ik mij daar minder slecht bij.

Wat als profiel compleet open zou zijn?

Daar zou ik mij toch wel ongemakkelijk bij voelen en dan zou ik het toch wel minder gebruiken. Het is

nu sowieso al makkelijk om te zien, je ziet duidelijk wanneer ik altijd ga lopen en waar ik vertrek dan is

het ook makkelijk te achterhalen waar ik woon, en mocht dat nog makkelijker zijn voor mensen met

slechte intenties, dan zou ik daar denk ik wel mee stoppen.

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Mijn facebook heeft privacy settings voor enkel vrienden, dus niet zomaar iedereen kan zien wat ik op

mijn Facebook zet end at geeft wel een misschien vals gevoel van veiligheid

Sowieso moest er op de een of andere manier misbruik van kunnen gemaakt worden, dan zou ik er mee

stoppen. Hoewel mee stoppen is veel gezegd, want het is best erg verslavend dat lopen en die Nike fuel.

Maar ik zou het misschien minder delen of de applicatie op indoor zetten, en dan meet die niet waar ik

ben en dan heb ik toch de statistieken maar zie je niet hoe of wat of waar, of ik gebruik de voetsensor

binnen dan meer.

Stel dat je profiel gewist zou worden?

Ik denk het wel, ik ben eens met een blog begonnen over de verslaving van Nike Fuel en het is echt zo

verslavend dat je zo elke dag, en dat is met die fuelband dan vooral dat je elke dag een doel hebt en dat

je dat doel elke dag haalt, dat je zo ziet dat je streaks hebt van 32 dagen dat je hebt bewogen. Mocht ik

dat dan plots kwijt zijn, dan zou ik toch wel flippen. Het is hetzelfde als met een Playstation of een Xbox

dat je dan plots je achievements zou kwijt zijn

Check je regelmatig je statistieken?

Op fuelband wel. Dat is dagelijks dat ik die ’s avonds synchroniseer en van het lopen, van de running

applicatie dat is gewoon na het lopen dat ik zie wat ik heb gedaan dat mijn tijd beter is of gelijk met

altijd want ik probeer toch altijd een standaardtijd neer te zetten, dus die statistieken bekijk ik wel, maar

ik ga niet nadien gaan opzoeken ok zo heb ik vorige week gelopen, in vergelijking met nu, zover gaat

het toch niet?

Vooruitgang app weerspiegeld in echte leven?

Toch wel, qua fuel, met die fuelband om bv iets te zeggen, ik beweeg dagelijks meer, ik heb een doel dat

ik elke dag moet halen, ik heb toch het idee en ik denk dat dat niet een vals idee is en dat dat wel terecht

is dat ik meer beweeg en dat ik ook gezonder leef, want uiteindelijk ik ga nu vier keer in de week lopen

deels om mijn Nike Fuelband te voeden en deels om die running applicatie en de conditie op peil te

houden. Dus ik denk wel dat het goed weerspiegelt wat ik in het echte leven verwezelijk en dat ik

mijzelf wat aan het verbeteren ben.

Werk je soms expliciet naar achievements toe?

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Vandaag nu toevallig wel, normaal gezien niet. De meeste achievements die ik haal, krijg ik toevallig,

daar let ik dan niet op. Ik probeer altijd gewoon te zien dat ik een rond aantal kilometers doe. Als ik op

6.5 zit en ik ben moe dan loop ik die zeven wel nog uit. Maar begin deze week had ik bv de snelste vijf

km gelopen, dat was toevallig en nu vandaag was redelijk rap aan het lopen en om de kilometer zegt die

applicatie hoe goed ik aan het lopen ben en vermist ik toch redelijk goed zat heb ik dan een tandje

bijgezet om dus weer die snelste vijf kilometer te verbreken. Maar dat is nu in dat jaar dat ik die

applicatie gebruik wel de eerste keer dat ik dat doe. Bij die fuelband dan weer dan wil je echt die streaks

halen, dan wil je echt altijd hebben dat die streak erbij komt, dat je na een maand die 31 dagen hebt en

dat je dan ziet dat je een ganse maand je doel hebt gehaald, dat is wel iets waar je naartoe leeft.

Denk je dat mensen vals spelen?

Ja, in het begin ik wel. In het begin had ik ’s avonds vaak een 200 Nike Fuel tekort en dan zat ik in de

zetel gewoon een beetje met mijn arm te zwaaien puur om dat nog te halen. Uiteindelijk besefte ik wel

dat ik enkel mijzelf in de zak zette daarmee, en dan besefte ik dat je niet stommer kunt zijn want

uiteindelijk koop je die band om beter te bewegen en dan ga je vals spelen op die manier, dat doe ik dus

niet meer maar ik denk wel dat meer mensen dat op die manier doen dat die zichzelf een goed gevoel

geven van “he ik ben goed bezig” maar dan uiteindelijk in hun zetel met hun arm zitten te zwaaien voor

die laatste paar 100 Nike Fuel te halen.

Er is niets in die applicatie die zoiets zou tegenhouden?

Nee want uiteindelijk is dat gewoon een stappenteller, dus zo accuraat is dat eigenlijk niet. Ik heb een

zittende job, dus als ik de hele tijd aan mijn bureau zit, merk ik dat ik niet veel Nike Fuel haal, maar als

ik nu een paar keer met mijn handen zwaaien of met heel veel gebaar typen dan zou ik ook mijn Fuel

halen. Het is niet zo heel accuraat en het is misschien niet altijd even correct de uitslag maar als je uw

doel hoog genoeg zet, heb ik daar persoonlijk geen probleem mee. Want dan weet je dat je ’s avonds

nog een inspanning moet lee?veren. Maar zo accuraat is het eigenlijk niet.

Sociale controle?

Sowieso wel, sowieso wel. Vooral omdat we hier met twee mensen op Fuelband zitten, dat we elkaar

dwingen om toch nog een beetje te doen ’s avonds. Als mijn vriendin een vrije dag heeft , dan ga ik

lastig doen en tegen haar zagen “zie dat je uw Fuel haalt, zie dat je uw doel haalt”. En hetzelfde voor

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mezelf vroeger zou ik tot een kot in de dag blijven liggen, maar nu doe ik altijd een effort. Ik heb ook

geprobeerd om op het werk mensen het aan te praten, want als je dat met meerdere hebt is dat een

geweldig ding om elkaar aan te moedigen.

Als je met meerdere vrienden het doet, zie je misschien ook makkelijk als iemand vals speelt

Als de scores een beetje belachelijk hoog liggen. Ja je kent je verschillende vrienden goed genoeg. Een

bepaalde vriend van mij, die ook regelmatig loopt mocht die zijn doel even hoog leggen als ik en hij

haalt dat ook, dan zou ik weten dat er iets mis is. Maar als je met meerdere mensen sport en je hebt die

sociale controle dan zit je elkaar heel efficiënt aan te moedigen en dat is heel plezant.

Doe je dingen die je voorheen nooit gedaan had op sportvlak?

Sowieso, als ik mijn doel niet haal, ga ik ’s avonds nog een beetje wandelen, puur om dat te halen. Het

zet mij echt aan om dat meer te doen.

Hoe vaak verander je persoonlijke goals?

Het is nu al even geleden, mijn doel staat nu op 2750 en dat is als ik de hele dag achter de computer zit

en als ik thuiskom heb ik 1500 Nike Fuel en dan moet ik ’s avonds nog bewegen, maar ik moet het

eigenlijk dringend eens omhoog stellen. De Fuel Band ben ik sinds augustus mee bezig en het is van

november geleden dat ik mijn doel heb verhoogd, dus ik doe het redelijk weinig, maar was het sowieso

van plan om het toch stilletjes aan te verhogen, maar ik probeer het toch realistisch te houden, kwestie

van mezelf niet volledig kapot te maken.

Motiveert de stem op de achtergrond?

Dat is een beetje een mes dat aan twee kanten snijdt. Als ik loop, soms loop ik met muziek en dan zegt

die stem om de kilometer hoe ik aan het lopen ben en dat kan soms heel ontmoedigend werken omdat je

dan bepaalde momenten, het gaat niet altijd goed, bijvoorbeeld door het weer en dan weet je dat je een

veel te trage tijd aan het neerzette bent en dan ga je soms wel rapper lopen, maar op sommige momenten

ben je zo moe dat je die stem verwensingen toesliert. Die aanmoedigen zijn zeer fake allemaal, maar het

werkt wel.

Wat zou je vinden van gamification op de werkplaats?

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Dat zou niets voor mij zijn. Als ze achievements in de plaats van loonsverhogingen zouden geven dan

mogen ze dat ding houden. Achievements gebonden aan uw werk…Werk en privé moeten voor mij

gescheiden blijven en dan mogen ze nog zoveel achievements geven, dat zou ik niet willen.

Demotiverende aspecten?

Dan moet ik even denken. Bij de fuel band als ik mijn doel niet haal, dat is voor mijzelf heel

demotiverend, want je wilt altijd die streak halen. Bij die running applicatie, voor mij persoonlijk niet.

Natuurlijk dat is eigenlijk wel raar, ik heb er nog niet over nagedacht op die manier, maar het is altijd

plezant om commentaar te krijgen op je run en als je dat dan niet krijgt van “hmm, wat heb ik verkeerd

gedaan.” Dus dat kan misschien wel demotiverend werken, maar aan de andere kant, ik gebruik het wel

al een jaar en ik gebruik het nog altijd dus zo erg zal het mij persoonlijk niet storen, want anders zou ik

al gestopt zijn.

Is er iets dat je zou kunnen doen stoppen?

Nee, niet onmiddellijk.

Stel dat je plots je gegevens kwijt zou zijn, hoe zou je daar op reageren?

Dat zou serieus demotiverend zijn, maar het zou mij niet doen stoppen met de applicatie. Dan zou ik

gewoon vanaf nul beginnen en het zou wel serieus pieken, maar ik zou het wel blijven gebruiken, puur

omdat het is gewoon voor mezelf heel goed als ik van mezelf kan zeggen ik heb deze maand 109 km

gelopen. Ik heb dan eigenlijk een heel goede maand achter de rug qua sportiviteit en dan heb je weer iets

om naar toe te leven ook al verlies je je gegevens. Het zou pijn doen, maar het zou geen reden zijn om te

stoppen.

De hoge ranks op leaderboards lijken onbereikbaar?

Hoe erg dat dit misschien klinkt, maar misschien omdat ik zo weinig vrienden heb die het gebruiken, en

ik bovenaan sta, ken ik dat niet. Ik ben goed bezig als ik het zo mag zeggen en dan hecht ik niet zo veel

belang aan die leaderboards als er heel veel vrienden dat zouden hebben, dan zou het misschien wat

anders zijn.

Wil je zelf nog iets kwijt?

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Het helpt mij echt om meer te bewegen, het helpt mij om gemotiveerder te blijven. Ik ben er in het

algemeen een beetje verslaafd aan, maar ik ben er wel heel tevreden van. Het blijft mij motiveren om

toch op een koude regenachtige dag buiten te komen. Het is dat competitieve in jezelf, je wilt altijd beter

doen dan vorige week en vroeger zou ik nooit in de regen gaan lopen en in de winter. Het blijft

stimuleren en dan maakt het mij niet uit dat er nadelen aan verbonden zijn, zoals die issue van de

veiligheid, maar het kan mij niet doen stoppen om het te gebruiken want het werkt.

Heb je vroeger nog andere applicaties gebruikt?

Vroeger in het begin ben ik met iets anders begonnen, ik denk Runtastic. Om te fietsen gebruik ik Map

My Ride. Ik weet niet of ik nog andere applicaties zou beginnen gebruiken. Bij iets als Fitocracy heb je

meer werk om alles te registreren, terwijl het bij Nike+ automatisch is. Zelf ingeven is misschien wat

omslachtig. Het voordeel van Nike+ is ook dat het heel gemakkelijk is, je drukt op tart, je drukt op stop

en je hebt je resultaten. Je kan zwart op wit bewijzen dat je beter bent gaan leven. De Nike+ applicatie is

gratis, maar ik denk wel mocht het betalend zou worden dat ik ervoor zou betalen.