Giving or receiving: Impact of online socializing in online fitness community on physical activity and emotional state

Abstract

With the increasing popularity of online social networking, people's communication with others on online platforms can regulate emotions and reduce stress, thus benefiting their physical activity and emotional state. Socializing can be divided into two categories: giving socializing and receiving socializing. However, it is not clear which type of socializing is more beneficial for physical activity and emotional state. Therefore, we collected the data from online fitness communities (OFCs) and used panel vector autoregression (PVAR) models to evaluate the effects of different types of online socializing on physical activity and emotional state. Also, we used a simultaneous equation model and modify variables to strengthen the accuracy and robustness of experimental results. We found that short-term receiving socializing has a greater impact on physical activity compared to giving socializing. The impact of long-term physical activity on giving socializing is greater than its impact on receiving socializing. Short-term giving socializing has a negative impact on emotional state, while short-term receiving socializing has a positive impact. The positive impact of emotional state on giving socializing is greater than its impact on receiving socializing. Further, compared to emotional state, giving socializing have a stronger effect on physical activity. This study building a triadic ecosystem of OFCs theoretically. And it provides practical suggestions for the development of socializing and the management of individual physical activity, as well as emotional state in an online social environment.