Using Sports Tracker: Evidences on Dependence, Self-Regulatory Modes and Resilience in a Sample of Competitive Runners

A sample of 111 runners was given a survey to illustrate their experience in using sports monitoring devices. Competitive experience proved to be a determining variable in influencing the strategy of using digital devices, suggesting a specific ergonomic model, so that the functionalities of sport trackers were first discovered, then consolidated and finally subjected to a rigorous selection. A relatively more passive and dependent attitude towards the monitoring tools in competitive running was found in subjects with less competitive experience ( p < .05), less personal resilience ( p < .01), less target orientation ( p < .0001). The more experienced runners, on the other hand, have shown that over time they have acquired a progressive mastery and internal control of their performance functions, so that they were sufficiently autonomous to structure the relationship of use with the sport trackers in a strictly instrumental way, for which there was no perception of dependence or submission.