Research Article
The Quantified Athlete: Associations of
Wearables for High School Athletes
Kwok Ng
1
and Tatiana Ryba
2
1
Department of Physical Education and Sport Sciences, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland
2
Department of Psychology, University of Jyvaskyla, Jyv¨ askyl¨ a, Finland
Correspondence should be addressed to Kwok Ng; kwok.ng@hbsc.org
Received 25 May 2018; Revised 27 August 2018; Accepted 2 September 2018; Published 1 October 2018
Guest Editor: Filipe M. Clemente
Copyright © 2018 Kwok Ng and Tatiana Ryba. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution
License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly
cited.
Te adoption of wearable technology in competitive sports can be an advantage to performance and training. Athletes who use
personalised data to quantify their performances with the possibilities of sharing with others may use wearables to reinforce the
athletic identity. Despite these changes, few studies have actually examined the associations between wearables and developing
athletes in their quest for professional sports. Student athletes (n = 437, age = 17y) still in high schools completed a web-based survey
about their professional aspirations, athletic identity, and the association with wearables. Wearables were measured by ownership
and usage of apps, ftness trackers, or sports watches. Odds ratio (OR) and 95% confdence intervals (CI) were reported. Most high
school athletes had apps (64.3%) or ftness trackers (65.2%) and over half of the athletes (58%) had aspirations for professional
sport. Athletic identity was positively associated with ownership and usage of apps and ftness trackers. Te OR was greater for
professional sport aspiration with ftness trackers owners (OR = 2.60, CI = 1.44-4.73) and users (OR = 4.04, CI = 2.09-7.81) than
athletes without ftness trackers. Wearables were common among high school athletes and it was part of their athletic identity.
For professional aspiring athletes, wearables have the potential to help provide data to support suitable training and competition
schedules at a time when students may be overloaded with academic pressures.
1. Introduction
Te technological advances, lowered costs, and public interest
have allowed wearables to be widely available. Although the
majority of users have been targeted for adult use, there has
been recent interest among high school students’ use [1]. As
high school athletes attempt to strive for excellence in their
sports, they are also expected to complete their education at
the same time [2]. High school athletes may fnd it difcult to
cope with the pressures and expectations of them [3]. Some
may feel they are considered as athletes frst and then student,
and others may feel they are high school student frst and
then athlete. High school athletes need to manage time so
that they can complete their academic achievements as well
as sporting ones. With the advent of technological tools in
the last 10 years, such as wearables, mobile apps, and online
programs, there is good potential that high school athletes
can fnd the right balance with their schedules. As such, it
is surprising how few studies have investigated the mediating
efect of wearables among high school athletes [1].
Wearables consist of sensors that athletes wear on them
[4]. Te majority are designed whereby there is a graphical
user interface that provides information about the sensor.
For the majority of commercially available wearables, the
graphical user interface is designed in a way to provide
personalised data. More advanced interfaces allows the users
to share their data to others, and for athletes, this could
be for their coach, team mates, rivals, and the public. In
professional arenas, data from wearables are used to supple-
ment sport commentary [5]. For example, the NBA set up
six cameras above the court and take detailed information
about all the athlete’s movements at a rate of 25 times per
second, resulting in approximately 72,000 unique movements
per game [6]. Although data from professional sport may
be public, in the form of match statistics and individual
performances, another aspect that has increasing interest is
Hindawi
Advances in Human-Computer Interaction
Volume 2018, Article ID 6317524, 8 pages
https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/6317524