Their study found that social media competition can dramatically increase people’s fitness.
“Framing the social interaction as a competition can create positive social norms for exercising,” said lead author Jingwen Zhang, Assistant Professor at the University of California, Davis.
Social competition among people may go beyond exercise, to encouraging healthy behaviours such as medication compliance, diabetes control, smoking cessation, flu vaccinations, weight loss, and preventative screening, as well as pro-social behaviours like voting, recycling, and lowering power consumption.
On the other hand, friendly support make people less likely to go to the gym less than simply leaving them alone, the study said.