Trends in Persuasive Technologies for Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Persuasive technology (PT) is increasingly being used in the health and wellness domain to motivate and assist users with different lifestyles and behavioral health issues to change their attitudes and/or behaviors. There is growing evidence that PT can be effective at promoting behaviors in many health and wellness domains, including promoting physical activity (PA), healthy eating, and reducing sedentary behavior (SB). SB has been shown to pose a risk to overall health. Thus, reducing SB and increasing PA have been the focus of much PT work. This paper aims to provide a systematic review of PTs for promoting PA and reducing SB. Specifically, we answer some fundamental questions regarding its design and effectiveness based on an empirical review of the literature on PTs for promoting PA and discouraging SB, from 2003 to 2019 (170 papers). There are three main objectives: (1) to evaluate the effectiveness of PT in promoting PA and reducing SB; (2) to summarize and highlight trends in the outcomes such as system design, research methods, persuasive strategies employed and their implementaions, behavioral theories, and employed technological platforms; (3) to reveal the pitfalls and gaps in the present literature that can be leveraged and used to inform future research on designing PT for PA and SB.

Keywords: behavior theory; health; persuasive strategies; persuasive technology; physical activity; sedentary behavior; targeted audience; targeted outcomes.

Figure 1

PRISMA flow diagram for the study selection workflow.

Figure 2

(A) Persuasive technology for physical activity and sedentary behavior trend by year; (B) Persuasive technology for physical activity and sedentary behavior by study country/region.

Figure 3

Effectiveness of persuasive technology in physical activity and sedentary behavior.

Figure 4

(A) Persuasive technology platforms. (B) Technology platforms and the effectiveness of PTs.

Figure 5

Persuasive strategies and frequency of use.

Figure 6

(A) Visual and textual feedback in habito mobile activity tracker system [135]; (B) Visual and textual feedback in on11 mobile system [123].

Figure 7

(A) On11 detour map [123]; (B) BunnyBolt game [102]; (C) BunnyBolt game scenario [102].

Figure 8

(A) Social comparison and social learning in wragaFit application [157]; (B) Time for break system [190]; (C) Exerlean bike system [72].

Figure 9

Comparative effectiveness of persuasive strategies.

Figure 10

(A) Behavior theories used in persuasive technology design; (B) the relationship between behavior theory and the effectiveness of PT.

Figure 11

Targeted health domain.

Figure 12

Targeted psychological and behavioral outcomes of persuasive technologies.

Figure 13

(A) Evaluation methdologies employed by persuasive technology; (B) Evaluation methods and persuasive technology effectiveness.

Figure 14

(A) Targeted audience by age demographics; (B) Effectiveness and evaluation outcomes of PTs based on target audience.

Figure 15

(A) Audience categorization based on their occupation/health conditions; (B) Duration of studies' evaluation.