This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at U Toronto chapter.

Exercise is getting more difficult to do for its own sake. By disguising exercise as a game through technology, we’re more likely to get fit. However, when the hype from a new app fades, so does any motivation to take a walk outside.

Being university students means that a large percentage of our days is spent studying for tests and completing papers. With the remaining time left, we want to have a break, not do work. So, of course we’re going to seek out technology to make exercise seem like less of a chore.

Let’s look at a few items and apps that try to do this, and consider whether relying on technology to make exercise fun is actually worth it.

Fitbit Adventures

At its core, the Fitbit is really just a step counter, but because of its added motivational features, it’s much more widely used than a basic step counter. According to the app, it has helped people take 30% more steps than they normally would.

Recently, Fitbit created a new app called Adventures to spice up a boring, familiar walk to the local park. It tracks steps through an app, instead of through the previously wrist strap.

When you walk, Fitbit tracks your distance and compares it to famous hiking trails worldwide. After walking a certain distance on a trail, Fitbit will provide trivia and unlockable scenic photos from the destinations that you’ve chosen to walk. Furthermore, it’ll offer health advice to keep you in shape. All the unlockable aspects makes this similar to game achievments.

But what happens when the hype fades? Would getting a Fitbit be sustainable when it comes to consistently getting people to walk 30% more steps than they normally would?

A few points to keep in mind are:

Interest in games always fades. There are some games I get addicted to, until something new comes along to catch my attention.
If you’re walking around just for the sake of testing out all the new features, once they become old news, it’s a given that you’ll lose motivation when it comes to exercising because of your initial intentions.
Unless new content is consistently added, Adventures is useless. You’re going to put down your Fitbit and not go for a walk when there’s nothing new to unlock.

When exercise needs to be thought of as a game to make it more tolerable, you’re only exercising because of the game. Once that variable disappears, you’re not going to keep your good habits.

Pokemon GO

Pokemon GO is another example of an app that encourages people to walk outside. It’s not really geared towards a Spartan exercise regime, but it does encourage taking long walks and turning gaming into a less socially isolating activity. Despite being a really new game, the buzz is already dwindling down.

The game used to have around 45 million players and since its launch date has lost 10 million. This should tell you we get bored of things fast, especially games. I remember the first time Pokemon GO was mentioned to me by one of my coworkers, and now it seems like people have already quit.

I personally think it’s declining in popularity for one reason, and that’s the added effort needed to walk outside. Let’s face it, we’re lazy.

On top of our laziness as a factor, catching Pokemon is a repetitive process: search like mad for a Pokemon you actually want to catch, reduce Pokemon health, throw Pokeball and hope that it works.

It’s even redundant in traditional Pokemon games, sometimes to the point where you won’t even finish it because the concept gets stale. This doesn’t mean that they’re bad games, but that they consume your life for a little while until you reach a point where you don’t remember why you were so addicted.

Combine the two factors together, and a little inconvenience will make people put the game down. For people who like Pokemon, they’re also more inclined to go back to traditional games where, despite the repetitiveness, they’re not forced to walk around on their own two legs. We’ll always favour our own laziness, especially when we have a busy schedule.

Zombies, Run!

What about something like Zombies, Run!, which is an actual exercise app? When it comes to exercising, running around the block can be made more interesting with the added stress of running for your life from zombie hordes.

You can choose from many different missions and modes, such as the race mode which allows you to choose between different distances to run – 5K, 10K or 20k. There is a main storyline, and if you’re still running after finishing your mission, then radio mode will come in and take over so that it doesn’t feel like you’ve stopped the game prematurely. The game also lets you see all your running statistics since you started playing, and each new update adds new features.

What I think is different in comparison to the other two apps shown is that unless you’re perfectly willing to run, you’re not going to be interested in this game. A zombie simulation isn’t going to help you if you hate running too much to attempt a 5K run.

Zombies Run! is for dedicated runners rather than a casual app for people looking to make exercise seem less like exercise.

As soon as it’s a serious exercise app, it’s going to attract serious people who don’t actually hate exercise. It’s not the type of game to become a fad. Instead, it emphasizes the running experience for people who are already dedicated to running.

Since you don’t have to do anything extra other than what you were already doing when going for a jog – moving your own two legs and running – it might even make things more tolerable for people like me who hate running.

Is Disguising Exercise Worth It?

The declining popularity of the Fitbit after new features are added and of Pokemon GO show us that trying to disguise exercise as something else only really has a short term effect on what people are going to do. Because they’re more like games (Pokemon GO is an actual game, after all), they have the same tendency to dwindle in popularity over time. Something like Zombies, Run! wouldn’t have the same tendency to become a fad; it’s more of a training program rather than a casual game.

We are more inclined to exercise when it isn’t seen as a chore or, better yet, when it seems like we’re not exercising at all. It doesn’t seem like people are in it for their own health, like they might naturally be for Zombies, Run!, because exercise is mandatory.

So, do we need to suck it up and take a walk even if we hate it? Probably, since the more we’re relying on games to make it feel like we’re not exercising, the more we’ll hate exercise. Games that only make our exercise experience more exciting are fine, especially since it still feels like exercise. We can get good habits out of that, especially since we’re not trying to delude ourselves into thinking we’re not exercising. Once we build those good habits, it gets a lot easier.