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The Effect of Social Networks on Active Living in Adolescents: Qualitative Focus Group Study
BACKGROUND: Participation in organized sports and other forms of active living have important health benefits in adolescence and adulthood. Unfortunately, the transition to secondary school has been shown to be a barrier to participation. Social networks can play important roles in activating adoles...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
JMIR Publications
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10587806/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37796582 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/46350 |
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author | Hermsen, Sander Van Abswoude, Femke Steenbergen, Bert |
author_facet | Hermsen, Sander Van Abswoude, Femke Steenbergen, Bert |
author_sort | Hermsen, Sander |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Participation in organized sports and other forms of active living have important health benefits in adolescence and adulthood. Unfortunately, the transition to secondary school has been shown to be a barrier to participation. Social networks can play important roles in activating adolescents, and information and communication technology (ICT) interventions can augment this role. To date, there are few insights into what adolescents themselves think and feel about barriers to and motivators for active living, the role of their social networks in active living, and the potential of ICT for physical activity (PA). OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to gather insights into the perspectives of adolescents aged 12 to 14 years on active living and sports participation, motivators and demotivators for active living, and the potential roles of their social network and of ICT. METHODS: A total of 26 adolescents aged 12 to 14 years from different levels of Dutch secondary schools participated in 1 of 5 semistructured focus group interviews, in which they talked about sports and PA, their social networks, their ICT use, and the role of social networks and ICT in PA. All interviews were transcribed and analyzed using a thematic qualitative approach. RESULTS: The study showed that all participants were physically active, although the transition to secondary school made this difficult, mostly because of time constraints. Participants saw positive physical and mental health effects as important benefits of active living. They regarded social benefits as strong motivators for active living: being together, making friends, and having fun together. However, the social network could also demotivate through negative peer judgment and negative feedback. Participants were willing to share their own positive experiences and hear about those from close peers and friends but would not share their own (and were not interested in others’) negative experiences or personal information. Participants were mainly interested in descriptive norms set by others and obtained inspiration from others for PA. With respect to using ICT for active living, participants stated a preference for social challenges among friends, personalized feedback, goals, activities, and rewards. Competition was seen as less important or even unattractive. If mentioned, participants felt that this should be with friends, or peers of a similar level, with fun being more important than the competition itself. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that adolescents feel that their social network is and can be a strong driver of active living. They are willing to use ICT-based solutions that make use of social networks for PA as long as these solutions involve their current (close) network and use an approach based on being together and having fun together. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10587806 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | JMIR Publications |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-105878062023-10-21 The Effect of Social Networks on Active Living in Adolescents: Qualitative Focus Group Study Hermsen, Sander Van Abswoude, Femke Steenbergen, Bert JMIR Form Res Original Paper BACKGROUND: Participation in organized sports and other forms of active living have important health benefits in adolescence and adulthood. Unfortunately, the transition to secondary school has been shown to be a barrier to participation. Social networks can play important roles in activating adolescents, and information and communication technology (ICT) interventions can augment this role. To date, there are few insights into what adolescents themselves think and feel about barriers to and motivators for active living, the role of their social networks in active living, and the potential of ICT for physical activity (PA). OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to gather insights into the perspectives of adolescents aged 12 to 14 years on active living and sports participation, motivators and demotivators for active living, and the potential roles of their social network and of ICT. METHODS: A total of 26 adolescents aged 12 to 14 years from different levels of Dutch secondary schools participated in 1 of 5 semistructured focus group interviews, in which they talked about sports and PA, their social networks, their ICT use, and the role of social networks and ICT in PA. All interviews were transcribed and analyzed using a thematic qualitative approach. RESULTS: The study showed that all participants were physically active, although the transition to secondary school made this difficult, mostly because of time constraints. Participants saw positive physical and mental health effects as important benefits of active living. They regarded social benefits as strong motivators for active living: being together, making friends, and having fun together. However, the social network could also demotivate through negative peer judgment and negative feedback. Participants were willing to share their own positive experiences and hear about those from close peers and friends but would not share their own (and were not interested in others’) negative experiences or personal information. Participants were mainly interested in descriptive norms set by others and obtained inspiration from others for PA. With respect to using ICT for active living, participants stated a preference for social challenges among friends, personalized feedback, goals, activities, and rewards. Competition was seen as less important or even unattractive. If mentioned, participants felt that this should be with friends, or peers of a similar level, with fun being more important than the competition itself. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that adolescents feel that their social network is and can be a strong driver of active living. They are willing to use ICT-based solutions that make use of social networks for PA as long as these solutions involve their current (close) network and use an approach based on being together and having fun together. JMIR Publications 2023-10-05 /pmc/articles/PMC10587806/ /pubmed/37796582 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/46350 Text en ©Sander Hermsen, Femke Van Abswoude, Bert Steenbergen. Originally published in JMIR Formative Research (https://formative.jmir.org), 05.10.2023. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Formative Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://formative.jmir.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included. |
spellingShingle | Original Paper Hermsen, Sander Van Abswoude, Femke Steenbergen, Bert The Effect of Social Networks on Active Living in Adolescents: Qualitative Focus Group Study |
title | The Effect of Social Networks on Active Living in Adolescents: Qualitative Focus Group Study |
title_full | The Effect of Social Networks on Active Living in Adolescents: Qualitative Focus Group Study |
title_fullStr | The Effect of Social Networks on Active Living in Adolescents: Qualitative Focus Group Study |
title_full_unstemmed | The Effect of Social Networks on Active Living in Adolescents: Qualitative Focus Group Study |
title_short | The Effect of Social Networks on Active Living in Adolescents: Qualitative Focus Group Study |
title_sort | effect of social networks on active living in adolescents: qualitative focus group study |
topic | Original Paper |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10587806/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37796582 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/46350 |
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