JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Fitness technologies such as wearables and sit-stand desks are increasingly being used to fight sedentary lifestyles by encouraging physical activity. However, adherence to such technologies decreases over time due to apathy and increased dismissal of behavioral nudges.

Objective:

To address this problem, we introduced shared autonomy in the context of sit-stand desks, where user input is integrated with robot autonomy to control the desk and reduce sedentary behavior, and investigated user reaction and preferences for levels of automation with a sit-stand desk. As demographics affect user acceptance of robotic technology, we also studied how perceptions of non-volitional behavior change differ across culture (US and India), sex, familiarity, and health priming messages.

Methods:

We conducted an online vignette study in the US and India where a total of N=279 participants watched video vignettes of a person interacting with sit-stand desks of various levels of automation and answered questions about their perceptions of the desks such as ranking of the different levels of automation.

Results:

Participants generally preferred either the manual or the semi-autonomous desks over the fully autonomous option (p<.001). However, people in India were generally more amenable to the idea of non-volitional interventions from the desk than people in the US (p<.001). Male participants had a stronger desire for having control over the desk than female participants (p=.014). No effects of health priming messages were observed.

Conclusions:

These results suggest that the shared autonomy desk is the optimal level of automation in terms of both user preference and hazard ratio in relation to sedentary bout duration, yielding the highest projected health outcomes. Demographics such as culture and gender had significant effects on how receptive users were. As familiarity improves adoption likelihood, we propose a gradual behavior change intervention to increase acceptance and adherence, especially for populations with a high desire for control.