Table 1.

Participants' Views on the Benefits of Using Popular Wearable Mobile Health Technologies (Fitbit Zip or Nike Fuelband) for Activity Tracking

CATEGORY	SAMPLE QUOTES
Motivating	“The little FitBit was very helpful. The FitBit was great.…It was good to keep track of, you know, how many minutes I did one day and if I could improve the next day and if I could go up higher on my minutes.” (Participant #2) “Well, I think it's [FuelBand] helpful because it helped me, I don't know, get more motivated. I was trying to get a lot of points and stuff.” (Participant #5) “I wanted to get more steps on my FitBit, so I would call my girlfriend and say, ‘Let's go apple picking.’ Or, it was always, ‘Let's go do something.’” (Participant #8)
Goal setting	“I started at a thousand and I upped it to 2,000. It helped me set goals throughout the day.” (Participant #9) “And I set a goal like each day, I wanted to achieve 1,500 steps and see, I've just overachieved.” (Participant #10)
Social connectivity and competition	“You will see the rewards that [other people] got. It was definitely helpful. It kinda wants you to get going more when you see that you're gonna be higher than a certain person.” (Participant #3) “She was up [in steps] and then I was up. We'd take turns. I liked that.…It's just fun. You can see who beats. That's all.” (Participant #7)
Self-monitoring	“I noticed a big difference in the days that I come up to the Y and days that I'd stay at home. Like, I'd get up and go to 1,000 [steps] at the Y. That was what my goal was. But then the days I don't come to the Y, I was only at 500, so it made a huge difference on the exercise I'd get in a day.” (Participant #6) “It was actually something I look forward to like each day doing, you know. Going at the end of the day, logging in how much I did and it's like ‘Ooh look, I walked this much,’ you know.” (Participant #10)
Ease of use	“After a while, it's like it's not even there.” (Participant #3) “The band was easy.” (Participant #6)