Using Degraded Music Quality to Encourage a Health Improving Walking Pace: BeatClearWalker

Abstract

-Meeting the target of 8000 steps/day, as recommended by many national governments and health authorities, can provide considerable physical and mental health benefits and is seen as a key target for reducing obesity levels and improving public health. However, to optimize the health benefits, walking should be performed at a "moderate" intensity. While there are numerous mobile fitness applications that monitor distance walked, none directly support walking at this cadence nor has there been any research into live feedback for walking cadence. We present a smartphone fitness application to help users learn how to walk at a moderate cadence and maintain that cadence. We apply real-time audio effects that diminish the audio quality of music when the target walking cadence is not being reached. This provides an immersive and intuitive application that can easily be integrated into everyday life as allows users to walk while listening to their own music and encourages eyes-free interaction. In this paper, we introduce our approach, design, initial lab evaluation and a controlled outdoor study. Results show that using music degradation decreases the number of below-cadence steps, that users felt they worked harder with our player and would use it while exercise walking.

Evaluating the Impact of Physical Activity Apps and Wearables: Interdisciplinary Review

“…Users’ views on whether the app or wearable increased, or will continue to increase and promote, physical activity [ 39 , 52 , 70 , 75 , 79 , 94 , 103 , 113 , 122 , 123 , 126 , 143 , 145 ]…”

A Scoping Review of Digital Tools to Reduce Sedentary Behavior or Increase Physical Activity in Knowledge Workers

“…Of the 45 studies, 34 did not specify a theoretical underpinning of their design. Of the 11 papers that did use a theoretical model, the most commonly used theory was the transtheoretical model (25%) [37,58,68], followed by the theory of planned behavior (17%) [41,46] and self-determination theory (17%) [50,74]. Five other papers based their designs on, respectively, persuasive system design model [65], goal setting theory [55], distributed prospective memory approach [48], social cognitive theory [38] and social learning theory combined with the theory of reasoned action [46].…”

“…Physical activity [35,43,46,53,58,65,66,74,77] Sedentary behavior [36,45,48,60] Not defined [12,34,[37][38][39][40][41][42]44,47,[49][50][51][52][54][55][56][57]59,[61][62][63][64][67][68][69][70][71][72][73]75,76] Although the majority of the papers did not provide a definition of SB or PA, a general distribution of the main targeted behavior could be made based on the description of the interventions. Just over half of the interventions targeted PA (24) while 9 interventions targeted SB and 12 targeted both PA and SB.…”

“…More specifically, 18 interventions targeted break-taking behavior, 20 interventions targeted non-work-related PA, 3 interventions targeted work-related tasks, and 4 interventions were categorized as "other targeted behavior". The studies that were categorized as other targeted behavior included an intervention to moderate and maintain cadence [58], one intervention that stimulated connectedness using an ambient light system and PA visualizations on a screen [49], and two designs that targeted multiple lifestyle factors including diet, sleeping habits, and PA [37,46]. Of the three work-related behavior interventions, two designs aimed to stimulate walking meetings [41,49] and one intervention used movement on an interactive chair to control a workplace computer [69].…”

“…This strategy was adopted by 18 interventions. Seven interventions aimed to create opportunities for users to perform the targeted behavior [34,38,41,52,58,69,76]. Only one intervention aimed to transform old behavior into new, healthier behavior.…”