Strava

Strava is a social fitness platform that allows users to track and share their athletic activities. Users can connect their GPS watches or other devices, enter activities manually, or use Strava’s in-app GPS to upload their workout for their followers or the public to see. A number of different sport types are supported by the platform, including running, hiking, swimming, and even several more niche sports such as kitesurfing, snowshoeing, and badminton. Once uploaded, Strava offers many tools and data points to give users a deeper insight into their activity and support them in their training. The goal of Strava is to get people to stay active and encourage healthy competition, but some ethical issues have been raised surrounding the app. One concern is the mental health of Strava users. The app's features can create a competitive environment, which has the potential to lead to obsessive tendencies and unhealthy behaviors. Furthermore, the app encourages users to share their location and includes many features related to its users’ location data, which has sparked controversy concerning the privacy and safety of Strava users. The app’s use of their user’s data to benefit communities has also received some backlash, as Strava’s user demographics are not representative of the general population. In response, Strava has updated their policies and has made efforts to make beneficial changes to their platform.

History

Strava was launched in 2009 by Micahel Horvarth and Mark Gainey. The two founders were both rowers at Harvard, and they missed the competitiveness of being a college athlete. To fill this void, they came up with an idea for a social media app for athletes, with features that allowed athletes to share their activities to ignite competition and motivation for staying active. They named the platform Strava, which means “to strive” in Swedish. Since then, the app has continued to gain popularity, and today more than 7 billion athletic activities have been shared on the platform worldwide.

Features

Fitness Features

Image of the Strava Interface

Strava provides its users with a number of performance stats that are meant to aid them in their training. These statistics include, but are not limited to, elevation gain, calories burned, pace, and heart rate. Strava uses their users location data to increase their quality of workout. For example, the app provides users with running and cycling routes nearby that may not be obvious by just looking at a map. Though the app can be downloaded for free, there are a few more advanced features that require a subscription, such as the development of personalized training plans based on past activities, access to advanced performance metrics, and personal heatmaps.

Social Features

One of the largest factors that sets Strava apart from other fitness tracking apps is its social aspect. Strava markets itself as a social network for athletes, which is an accurate description, as it includes many features that strongly resemble the features of other social media apps. Users create a profile where they can include personal information such as a profile picture, biography, and their location. These profiles also feature the users’ exercise activities that function similarly to posts on other social platforms. Each activity contains a few data points about the workout, as well as a map of where the workout took place (if the user used a GPS device). The user then has the option to personalize the activity: they can add a title, give it a caption, and even include pictures. Their activity will then show up on their followers feed, where they can comment on and give “kudos”, which is the Strava version of likes. Strava users can also enter challenges, in which they are rewarded with a badge on their profile if they complete the required mileage, as well as compete to be on local leaderboards, where they can compare their performance against others who have completed the same local segment, which are sections of a route where users can compete against one another for the fastest time.

Location Services

Many of the services that Strava provides depend on its users sharing their location data. Some of these features are for the direct use and benefit of the user, such as Beacon and Flyby, while other features were put in place to benefit a larger community, as seen with Strava Metro.

Strava Metro

Strava has millions of users who have opted to share their location data, and with that information Strava has implemented Strava Metro. When a user goes on a run, hike, or bike ride, Strava tracks the path they took via GPS and this information contributes to a very large dataset for all Strava users. Strava Metro utilizes this information, but aggregates and anonymizes it to protect the privacy of the individual users. Strava then analyzes this massive dataset to look for trends and insights. For example, this data will show paths that are highly frequented, paths that are avoided, and areas where athletes often start or end their activities. Furthermore, this data can show areas where many accidents have occurred, revealing areas that may be dangerous spots in a city. Strava Metro shares this valuable information with governments and urban planners, which can be extremely helpful in making decisions about transportation, infrastructure improvements, and safety measures. Strava Metro’s ultimate goal is to improve cities for their users and all other pedestrians, cyclists, and athletes in order to build safer communities and encourage healthy lifestyles. To make Strava Metro more accessible, the company made it free to all organizations in 2020, and it is now being used to help over 1,500 communities improve their transportation systems.

Beacon

Beacon is another feature of Strava that relies on user location data to function. It is a safety feature that allows Strava users to share their location with selected contacts in real-time during outdoor activities such as cycling, running, and hiking. To use Beacon, a user simply needs to add safety contacts, which are people who the athlete trusts and wants to share their location with. Then, if Beacon is on, Strava will send a text message to all the user’s safety contacts as soon as they start an athletic activity. This message contains an URL which allows the recipient to see the user’s location in real time all throughout the activity. The idea behind Strava Beacon is to give friends and family peace of mind by allowing them to track the location of their loved one during a workout or outdoor activity. This feature is beneficial for users who are young, alone, in a dangerous area or participating in a dangerous activity, but any user, vulnerable or not, can opt into using Beacon.

Flyby

Strava Flyby allows users to see other Strava users who “flew by” them during their workout. Essentially, if two strava users in the same area and both have Flyby turned on during an activity, Strava will tell them where and when they intersected during their workout. When a user uploads their workout to Strava, the Flyby feature automatically analyzes the data and identifies any other Strava users who were nearby at the same time. The user can then view a list of these intersections and see the other users' profiles, along with a map of the intersection point. Strava Flyby allows users to connect with other local Strava users who share their love of the same outdoor activities, find and share new routes that other users may not have known about, and find new training partners in the same community.

Ethical Concerns

Mental Health

While the emphasis that Strava puts on the social aspect of fitness and competition can be a valuable tool for promoting healthy habits, there have been some concerns about the potential negative effects it could have on mental health. Whether it is getting kudos and comments from friends, earning badges from challenges, or climbing local leaderboards, users are rewarded for running further, faster, and more often than their fellow athletes. A study done at the National University of Ireland, Galway found that while these features can help many people stay motivated, others are negatively affected by the competition that the app encourages. The authors revealed that some Strava users possess an obsessive passion for exercise, and the constant comparison that is found on the app only worsens this obsession and leads to burnout. These users put too much pressure on themselves to perform well and gain recognition from their peers, which eventually leads to physical and emotional exhaustion. On the other hand, it was found that many users did not experience these negative effects, and were able to exhibit self-control and keep a well-balanced lifestyle. For these users, Strava had mostly positive effects, encouraging them to exercise and stay healthy. Another concern is that Strava enables users who are overly concerned with how their life is viewed by others, specifically in the form of data. These individuals are known as “data point identities”.

Safety and Privacy

So many of Strava’s features, including heatmaps, segments, Beacon, and more, require users to share their location with the app, and a few of those features even require users to share their locations with their followers and the public. Because of this, there has been some controversy surrounding the privacy and safety of those who choose to share their location.

Heatmap Controversy

One major issue surrounded Strava’s heatmap. The Strava heatmap is a map that is updated monthly that uses Strava users’ activities to show the most popular locations for athletic activities. Roads and paths that show up often in activities appear brighter on the map, where less frequented paths appear darker. For most of the population, this heatmap is not a privacy concern, since the data from the heatmap is anonymous. Also, for many parts of the map, there is so much activity that every street is highlighted, making it impossible to discern any specific paths that the users might take . However, in January of 2018, it became clear to security analysts that this heatmap was revealing the location of military bases. Many military sites are located in areas where Strava is not popular among the people living there, so American service members are some of the only people using Strava in these locations. Therefore, the heatmap reveals the running, cycling, and walking routes of these military personnel. This is dangerous, as these routes could be important supply and convoy routes, which is sensitive information that could put troops at risk if it were to fall into the wrong hands.

Flyby Controversy

Another safety concern involves Strava’s feature Flyby. With Flyby, users can see which other Strava users that they passed by during their activity, given that the other user has their location turned on. This allows athletes in the same area to connect and build community, but it also could be seen as an invasion of privacy and a safety risk. When users pass each other during a workout, they are provided with information about each other after the workout, including each other's name, profile picture, and a map of the activity. This map could give further information as to where this person lives, if they started their activity from their home. In response to these privacy concerns, Strava made the default setting for flyby to be turned off, making user’s have to manually turn it on if they want to participate in Flyby. However, some users were upset with this development, as there were much fewer athletes using Flyby once Strava updated their privacy controls.

Underrepresentation

Strava Metro is a valuable resource for cities looking to improve the pedestrian experience, but it has received some backlash. Some have pointed out that the data comes only from Strava user’s, leaving other populations underrepresented. Strava users are more likely to be male and between the ages of twenty-five and forty-four. Furthermore, Strava requires the use of a fitness tracker device or at least a cell phone, excluding many people from the elderly community and people with a lower socioeconomic status. If cities are making major transportation decisions based on Strava Metro data, it is possible that these populations that do not use Strava will not benefit from these decisions, or could possibly be hurt by them. In addition, black athletes are underrepresented on Strava, and there have been many instances of racism on the app. In response, Strava has made steps towards building more diversity on their platform. Strava has announced that they are committed to fighting racism and has donated money to anti-racist organizations like the NAACP. In 2022, Strava also announced the launch of “Strive for More”, which is an initiative that is dedicated to getting more women in sports. The company pledged $1 million dollars to be spent on helping female athletes in professional sports.

Strava Privacy

Strava has a privacy policy that outlines how the company collects, uses, and protects personal information of its users. The privacy policy includes information about what data is collected, how it's used, and with whom it may be shared. There are many pieces of information that Strava asks its users for their consent before accessing, while other information requires the users to turn off themselves.

Default Settings

Strava claims that it is necessary for many of their services that their users’ location sharing is turned on. Because of this, the device location tracking is default turned on for all users. However, users do have the option to turn the tracking off, but they will lose much of the app’s functionality as a result. It is also Strava’s default setting to include their user’s information in their aggregated data. This data includes popular routes, as used in Strava Heatmap and Strava Metro, as well as information about a user’s performance and demographic. Strava uses this data for their own use, and sells it to third parties as well. Again, Strava users do have the option to opt out of having their information included in this aggregated data, but they do have to turn it off themselves. Finally, a user’s profile is also defaulted to be viewable to the public, but there are options to make the profile completely private or only viewable to friends. Profiles include information like name, location, bio, profile pic, and additional personal information.

Consent Policy

There are also many data points that Strava will not collect unless given explicit consent by the user. For example, Strava collects health information about its users, but only if the user gives consent. This information includes data about heart rate, weight, power, and other measurements. However, some features, performance analysis, may be unavailable if a user opts out of the collection of these measurements. In addition, if a user later decides they do not want their health information to be collected, Strava will delete this data, though it may take some time.