Difference between revisions of "Strava"

Revision as of 23:01, 26 January 2023

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^[1]. 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.

Features

Fitness Features

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^[2].

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^[3]. 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”^[4].

Safety and Privacy

References

1. ↑ Supported sport types on Strava. Strava Support. (n.d.). Retrieved January 26, 2023, from https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/216919407-Supported-Sport-Types-on-Strava
2. ↑ Running, Cycling & Hiking App - Train, track & share. Strava. (n.d.). Retrieved January 25, 2023, from https://www.strava.com/features
3. ↑ Whelan, E., & Clohessy, T. (2020). How the social dimension of fitness apps can enhance and undermine wellbeing. Information Technology & People, 34(1), 68–92. https://doi.org/10.1108/itp-04-2019-0156
4. ↑ Rivers, D. J. (2019). Strava as a discursive field of practice: Technological affordances and mediated cycling motivations. Discourse, Context & Media, 34, 100345. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2019.100345