Enhancing digital social interaction using augmented reality in mobile fitness applications

The recent global pandemic has had great impact on our society, were restricted physical social interaction created changes that will have long-lasting effects on how certain activities are performed. One example is how the restrictive use of training facilities has impacted people's motivation of working out. Training online, through e.g., social media, increased during this time and many new apps for this purpose were launched. One way of differentiating in this landscape is the use of augmented reality. This paper investigates how augmented reality can be used in mobile fitness apps to improve the digital social interaction when working out. The study is based on prototyping and testing of a conceptual app and the results show the potential of augmented reality to improve social interaction in this context.