Scott, Darren

Start date:
October 2017
Research Topic:
Rethinking sustained healthy lifestyle change through design and evaluation of socio technical wearable systems
Research pathway:
Research Supervisor:
Dr Matt Roach
Supervising school:
Primary funding source:
ESRC Studentship

It can be clearly seen in recent findings that the level of physical activity in Wales has fallen over recent years. With the findings that 17% of preventable deaths in Wales are due to high levels of inactivity, this is clearly an issue that needs to be addressed.

The research will mostly address the increase of fitness levels through wearable systems, namely smart watches and specialist fitness technology such as a FitBit. By examining social data and looking closely at what encourages continued use of an application or device, the aim is that a system could be created that would encourage higher levels of fitness in the general population in such a way that would be sustainable in the long term.

There are many potential options for this project, such as the use of machine learning to specially tailor encouragement, which would aim to combat the issue of the loss of motivation and interest which can be seen as the main reason other attempts at such technology have not been successful. A major part of this will be a constant evaluation both of existing methods and self-designed methods to find the most effective methods of creating and sustaining this motivation.