Studying in-situ technology use over time can be difficult and this is especially so when considering technologies such as activity tracking devices explicitly designed to be unobtrusive. Yet understanding activity tracking in practice is crucial, as tracking technologies become important tools for health promotion and health insurance programs. In this paper, we describe a method for a longitudinal participant-driven photo elicitation study of activity tracking. During the five-month long study, our drop-out rates were low and we observed idiosyncratic practices with lapses and particular use patterns among participants along with significant self-reflection on activity tracking as a practice. We describe our method in detail, discussing the necessary adaptations for the study of activity tracking practices. We offer our experiences of benefits and challenges of this process, and suggest points for consideration for future studies in the area.

Personal health technologies are increasingly introduced in workplace settings. Yet little is known about workplace implementations of activity tracker use and the kind of experiences and concerns employees might have when engaging with these technologies in practice. We report on an observational study of a Danish workplace participating in a step counting campaign. We find that concerns of employees who choose to participate and those who choose not to differ. Moreover, privacy concerns of participants develop and change over time. Our findings challenge the assumption that consumers are becoming more comfortable with perceived risks associated with wearable technologies, instead showing how users can be initially influenced by the strong positive rhetoric surrounding these devices, only to be surprised by the necessity to renegotiate boundaries of disclosure in practice.

Sedentary work is a contributing factor to growing obesity levels worldwide. Research shows that step-counters can offer a way to motivate greater physical mobility. We present an in-situ study of a nation-wide workplace step-counting campaign. Our findings show that in the context of the workplace steps are a socially negotiated quantity and that participation in the campaign has an impact on those who volunteer to participate and those who opt-out. We highlight that specific health promotion initiatives do not operate in a vacuum, but are experienced as one out of many efforts offered to the employees. Using a social ecology lens we illustrate how conceptualizing a step-counting campaign as a health promotion rather than a behavior change effort can have implications for what is construed as success.