Connect, compete, compare: Motivational implications of social fitness platform-based exercise

Abstract

Problem Statement: The health benefits of sport and exercise are well documented. Accordingly, understanding people's motivation for sustained sport and exercise participation is of vital importance. However, over the last decade, this aim is gradually challenged due to the strong rise in exercise with use of digital fitness tracking applications and social fitness platforms (SFP; online fitness community where users can share their recorded activities to a network of other users). Despite this trend, research on motivational implications of exercising with use of a SFP is limited; specifically, two well-established antecedents for explaining sport and exercise motivation in the 'broad domain of sport', motives and achievement goals have been largely overlooked in this line of research. Hence, more understanding of motivational patterns for SFP-based exercise is important as it can contribute to improve the quality of the sport and exercise experience in this context. Approach: This study used a cross-sectional design and focused on users of the social fitness platform Strava. Strava users (481 males and 99 females; M age = 35.20) completed questionnaires measuring: motives and goals for SFP use; motivational responses self-regulation, effort, enjoyment, and relatedness; and SFP/sport user features. Purpose: This study had two purposes: To examine whether (1) motives and goals were related to motivational responses, and (2) these relationships were moderated by user features, when exercising with use of a SFP. Results: Regression analysis revealed that: Competence motives and task involvement were associated positively, and ego involvement negatively with self-regulation; Intrinsic, extrinsic, and competence motives, and task involvement were associated positively and social motives negatively with effort; Intrinsic, extrinsic, and competence motives were positively associated with enjoyment; Extrinsic and social motives were positively associated with relatedness. In addition, 'number of posts' moderated the relationship between competence motives and self-regulation, and 'main sport activity' (i.e., cyclists vs. runners) moderated the relationship between ego involvement and self-regulation, and between ego involvement and effort; 'privacy settings' (i.e., allowing others to follow you) moderated the relationship between extrinsic motives and enjoyment; and, 'social exercise context' (i.e., exercising mostly alone or in a group) moderated the relationships between extrinsic motives and relatedness, and between social motives and relatedness. Conclusions: The current findings highlight the value to examine achievement motivation specific to sport and exercise with use of a SFP and can help to provide practical applications to facilitate adaptive achievement motivation in this exercise context.