Women more likely to use fitness trackers than men says new research
Essential reading: Top fitness trackers and health gadgets
The study comes from Pew Research Centre which surveyed more than 4,000 people in June of last year. The results were broken down by socioeconomic factors. Interestingly, many of these figures tally up with a report published by Gallup last month.
Currently, some 21% of American adults own and use a fitness tracker or smartwatch. Women seem to be more health conscious than man as about one in four of them belong to this group. Some 18% of men indicated they use such a device.
As you’d expect, the data shows that younger generations are more willing to adopt to new technology than older folks. About a quarter of those 18-49 own a fitness device compared to only 17% of those over 50.
Fitness and muscles decline as we age. But this doesn’t need to happen and there are lots of things we can do to stave off the effects of getting older. If any group should use fitness trackers and smartwatches it is precisely this older group.
The numbers were also broken down by income. The results, again, didn’t come as a shock. About one in three of those earning $75K or more donned a fitness device, compared to 20% of those earning $30K-$75K. Only 12% of those earning less than $30K belonged to this category.
Other data shows that Hispanics were more likely to use fitness devices than other ethnic groups. College educated were are also more likely to use them.
Finally, respondents were also asked to indicate whether they have were happy for wearable companies to share their fitness data with medical researchers. Around 41% of them said they were, 35% said it was unacceptable and 22% weren’t sure. Hispanic Americans under 49 were most willing to share their data. White Americans over 50s were least likely.
Like this article? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter and never miss out!
