Characterizing the Performance and Behaviors of Runners Using Twitter
Document Type
Poster AbstractPublication Date
2014-05-20Keywords
Behavior and Behavior MechanismsCommunication Technology and New Media
Computer Sciences
Exercise Physiology
Health Information Technology
Musculoskeletal, Neural, and Ocular Physiology
Social Media
Translational Medical Research
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Running is a popular physical activity that improves physical and mental wellbeing. Unfortunately, up-to- date information about runners’ performance and psychological wellbeing is limited. Many questions remain unanswered, such as how far and how fast runners typically run, their preferred running times and frequencies, how long new runners persist before dropping out, and what factors cause runners to quit. Without hard data, establishing patterns of runner behavior and mitigating the challenges they face are difficult. Collecting data manually from large numbers of runners for research studies is costly and time consuming. Emerging Social Networking Services (SNS) and fitness tracking devices make tracking and sharing personal physical activity information easier than before. By monitoring the tweets of a runner group on Twitter (SNS) over a 3-month period, we collected 929,825 messages (tweets), in which runners used Nike+ fitness trackers while running. We found that (1) fitness trackers were most popular in North America (2) one third of runners dropped out after one run (3) Over 95% of runners ran for at least 10 minutes per session (4) less than 2% of runners consistently ran for at least 150 minutes a week, which is the level of physical activity recommended by the CDC (5) 5K was the most popular distance.DOI
10.13028/cx43-jq06Permanent Link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/27959Notes
Abstract of poster presented at the 2014 UMass Center for Clinical and Translational Science Research Retreat, held on May 20, 2014 at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Mass.
Rights
Copyright the Author(s)Distribution License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.13028/cx43-jq06