Naysayers of social media and smart phones have all kinds of criticism to level at their impact on life in the modern world. “Apps don’t change your behavior,” “social networking isn’t real,” and “you can’t trust what you find on the Internet” are amongst the many concerns that people raise.
Many of these complaints are legitimate and have to be considered in the conversation of how we are allowing mobile apps to change how fitness is done. Yet, though science and technology can’t tell us how we employ them, they still present big opportunities for positive change to be affected by people who are disciplined and motivated.
One particularly interesting development amongst mobile apps is the “share feature” by which people are sharing their progress and workouts with their friends through social media. This has becoming increasingly common, and social media is now serving as a peer pressure/accountability mechanism.
There are perhaps few pressures in our world that can inspire someone to change their behavior or try something new than seeing their social media feed update them on the fantastic progress of their peers in tackling new workouts or diets.
Other people use this intentionally, in order to help people stay updated on their progress so they can offer encouragement or challenges to pick up the pace. This may be a scary substitution for in-person relationships but it’s also true that before social media and fitness apps, it was not possible to immediately update all your friends on your progress in physical fitness.
Another big change is the way in which people are designing apps to provide people with instantaneous access to health information. You can download apps to scan your grocery items and determine how they fit into your nutrition plan. You can download apps that will provide you with the best workouts to achieve particular goals. You can get information on how to do those workouts and and how they accomplish their aims.
In the information age, people can have access to legitimately good information anywhere in the world. The average person has more, not less, access to the wisdom and learning of kinesthesiologists and other medically accredited persons.
When you consider that before the rise of smart phones, people would hear workout tips or health ideas from other average people and have little access to information that would disprove bad data, you have to concede that the information age makes it more likely that “truth will out.”
Perhaps the greatest change to fitness and workouts that is being achieved by smart phones and their various apps is simply the tremendous personalization of fitness. An individual can find all the workouts and technique videos they would ever need to inform and aid them in building a routine, have a useful guide and database to store their workout and nutrition information and progress, and then share all this information with other people in their lives.
And they can do this from anywhere in the world while anywhere in the world. There’s no need to shop for classes at a gym, you can bring the instructor into your hand and engage in the workouts on your own time and in your own space.
This is truly what concerns people the most. Will this greater access actually result in people making changes in their lives? Will they really work out at home, seek out and take the best advice, and receive accountability? There’s no telling, and no guarantees.
However, there can be little doubt that someone who wants to be a social person, who is trying to improve their diet and fitness, and who has the discipline to organize it themselves, can become very well equipped to do so while embracing the new technology.
IanB writes for Boxfit UK, where you can acquire clothing and equipping to engage in your own boxing workouts.