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and modified by technology. In this discussion, we use indoor cycling as our case,
however, the argumentation should be valid to other non-competitive sports as well.
Indoor cycling, like many other indoor fitness exercises, does not naturally provide
means for practitioners to compare their effort to their peers. Nevertheless, our study
revealed that some indoor cyclists use various visual cues to estimate the efforts of
others. However, as no concrete data can be inferred about the level of intensity of
other indoor cyclists, these sparse visual cues only work as a vague competitive
element.
The use of devices such as HR watches and bike-mounted watt displays facilitates
an impartial competition, where indoor cyclists can compete with themselves by
comparing their performance to previous achievements. However, several participants
from our study commented that they had stopped using these devices after a while, as
they ended up always competing against their all time best performance, which often
caused a demotivating feeling. We argue that this kind of competition can be
described as a subsequent competition in the game-mechanics framework presented
by Jensen et al. in [4]. A subsequent competition is defined by having a predefined
static goal for the competitor to beat, which compares to indoor cyclists trying to beat
their MAX HR or maintain the highest average intensity through a class. According to
Jensen et al., this form of competition suffers from an inopportune pressure, which
tends to make participants give up early if mistakes are made during the performance
or the goal seems impossible to beat. This was exemplified in our study by a
participant remarking that, “For a period I used the bikes with mounted watt displays,
but I went sick of it after a while, because I kept trying to get higher, but I couldn't”.
The introduction of sharing biometric data between participants facilitated a
platform for competition, which in our study influenced the relation between the
indoor cyclists and improved their motivation. We argue that sharing biometric data
in an interactive way, as mediated by RBH, facilitates what Jensen et al. frames as a
concurrent competition. A concurrent competition is defined by practitioners trying to
beat a dynamic goal, which constantly change in relation to the performance of their
opponents. In these competitions, the competitors feel a substantially stronger and
more constant pressure, due to ongoing indication of their opponents' progress [4].
This observation was exemplified in our study as well, emphasized by the statements
on motivation and in the case of exasperation, presented in the section above.
6
Conclusion
In this paper, we have presented a smartphone application, called Race By Hearts,
which enables real-time sharing of biometric data between athletes, thereby
facilitating a competition in a non-competitive setting. Through an empirical study,
we have shown that sharing biometric data in real-time strengthens social relations
between participants, increases their motivation, and improves the enjoyment of the
fitness activity. However, we also found that introducing competition based on real-
time sharing of biometric data can cause exasperation and discouragement for some
athletes if not handled carefully. To put our findings in perspective, we discussed the
