Reflections

Before I added the SparkPage, I didn't feel I was actively involved in the community. After having my SparkPage, I feel that I have my own community now who actually "knows" about me. When posting on big forums, there were over 100,000 members posting as well. and I did not feel like most of them were replying to each other. They were rather replying to the question the starter posted.

But now I realize that the SparkTeams are in more intimate settings where people know each other (their faces, interests, progress). Also, friends would visit each other to motivate each other with statements like "Happy Tuesday..!! Have fun working out cuz the scale is going DOWNNNNNNNNN!!!!!..... lol." ( CINDYY0O 4/14/2009 12:03:43 PM)

In a way, SparkPages are similar to Facebook in that you can set your status, and your recent activities such as leaving comments, changing status, becoming friends with others) are logged in the page. Once I am a friend of another user, I will get a feed of her activities. Also, I have the option to receive emails in regard to forum post or comments that I left on others' pages. This is convenient in that I do not get emails for all little activities that other users do, but only for activities that I care.

It was very easy for me to become involved in SparkPeople. Not only were people friendly, but they are also positive and motivational. They would reply me with detailed, and friendly comments. I wonder if this is the culture in SparkPeople. I am also curious that if getting featured in "SparkPeople Motivator!" has to do anything with that.


Anyway, I am collecting questions to ask once I get to know some of these members pretty well.
1. Why did you decide to create a SparkTeam by yourself? What was the motivation?
2. You seem very honest and detailed about your health life on your page. Can I ask why?
3. How do you spend your time in SparkPeople (Forums, SparkTeams, SparkPages, articles, logs) and how long?
4. Do you know most of your friends personally?
5. Have you invited friends to SparkPeople?
6. Are you honest with your progress?
7. You seem not to be bothered posting your images or weight. Why is that?
8. Where do you mostly get your motivation from?
and more to come!

Support Chain

I made 3 friends today! and I already feel motivated to continue my workout.
I simply went to College Students SparkTeam and read people's posts. I visited a user's SparkPage if the post was interesting or motivating. When I visited AZILEE80's page, I wanted to know how she set the background image. So I left her a comment on the page asking her how to do that. Within 30 minutes, I got an email saying that I got a new comment.

AZILEE80 4/15/2009 2:02:24 PM
Hi! Thanks for the comment on my blog!
If you go up in the top right to edit page and then when the edit screen comes up, you go to where you can change the colors and everything. You select upload background image and you should be able to go to any jpeg file and add it. Hope that helps!

Then, I went to her page again, and this time I gave her a SparkGoodie that says "Best wishes." In the optional message box, I wrote "I want a SparkGoodie lol =)."
Within an hour, I got my first SparkGoodie which is a smiley face!

Browsing other members' SparkPages and their profile pictures, I realized that I wanted to have friends who are similar to me in terms of physique, interests, and age. So I visited KENDRALONG's SparkPage. She has a big icon that says "Lost 10 pounds with SparkPeople." Losing 10 pounds is not an easy job! Also, I admired that she wrote detailed, honest descriptions about her life on the main page.

I wrote a comment, "I like how you're honest about your story! You are my motivator of the day!" Within thirty minutes, she also added me as a friend. This was great because it showed me that she wanted to help me out.

My own SparkPage

I decided to get more involved in the community. So, I visited College Students SparkTeam that I joined to introduce myself to the community. Then, I saw a post "A Few Spark Starters" that said I should first create my own SparkPage. So I went and created a page.

It took me about an hour all together to finish the page. Because I am into web design, I wanted the page to look decent. I first changed the colors for the background and text. I also added pictures of me climbing up the tree to show my adventurous side and of Cornell campus.

I also FINALLY realized how to get the weight loss tracker that is on every user's post. Weight loss tracker shows the user's progress to his/her weight goals as an image. I chose an ocean background with the sun pointing at my weight.

Also, I edited "My Goals," "My Program," and my "Personal Information."
Writing this helped me to really think about what my health goals are and the steps that I could take everyday to achieve it. Here is what I came up with:

My Goals:
1. To go to the gym twice a week Monday and Wednesday mornings

My Program:
1. Sleep early the day before going to the gym

2. Set the alarm clock an hour before I wake up so I don't be lazy and get my butt up dancing to the music

3. Stay motivated with the help of other members!

Personal Information:
I'm from NYC.
Hit me a message or leave me comment! I'll get right back at you =)

Ultimately, I am very satisfied with my page and I want to add more content by adding a blog entry, adding friends, and SparkGoodies (free gifts that others can give you!).

Unanswered Questions

I visited "SparkPeople Game Room" and was excited about fun people have with games.
Most games were very simple and easy to play. For example, Crotty posted game "Change a Letter" on 3/19/09 11:56PM and started with "robe," and the next person replied with "role", and then it became "pole", and after 2214 words, it became "Hulk." There are also silly games such as "Last person to post wins!" which has all together 17903 posts and it is still going on.

I also wanted to gain more SparkPoints so I took a quick poll. The question was "What kind of junk food do you usually crave?" and I selected all of the above (Salty, sweet, crunchy, creamy, and cold). After I submitted, the result showed that "sweet" came first (41%), next to "all of the above" (25%). I also received 3 extra SparkPoints.

I recognized that there are more women than men on the site. Maybe the design of the site is targeted toward women, with pretty graphics, images, and lots and lots of content. There are also lots of features on the site, and lots of effort and time to put to keep up with everything on the site. Also, I think women are more conscious of their weight/health than men, and thus would like to learn more and share stories with others.

In addition, I learned that the design of the site shapes the behavior of users. On most pages, users find activity stats everywhere. Activity stats are dynamic numbers that show various information such as calories burned, pounds lost, cups of water drunk, recent exercises, SparkPoints earned etc. This information encourages and further motivates users to work harder to achieve their goals by showing others' statistics and welcoming users to contribute to the stats. User's goal achievement status that appears on every post also reminds the user and others of the goals they are trying to accomplish. Also, SparkPoints encourages users to earn points by doing things that bring them closer to their goals.

In the end, I have few questions that are still not answered:
-Do they support each other outside the virtual community? (the extent to which they encourage each other)
-Are most people honest about their weight and progress?
-What do people do on SparkPeople most of the time?

Validity of Claims in Posts

S_BOETTCHER90 asked in SparkPeople Cafe forum, "What is your opinion on artificial sweeteners?" There were many, many answers, but after reading all of them, I was still not sure if artificial sweeteners are good or bad. BASOPHA says on 3/19/09 6:11AM that "artificial sweeteners contain aspartame" which "has been linked to diabetes, lupus and other serious illnesses.

Anarie says on 3/18/09 11:00pm that "scientific studies have found that when you take people who think they get headaches from artificial sweeteners, and give half of them sugar and half of them sweetener, there no difference in the number of headaches they get."

Others comment that they just don't take them because they're bad and would rather eat honey. These comments and replies provide lots of information, but whether or not these sources are reliable were questionable. Even though S_BOETTCHER90 did not reply again after the initial post, he probably took some reply as an answer and was satisfied, or looked more into chemical aspartame in artificial sweeteners online to verify.
The extent to which these posts are helpful to people is unknown, but since people keep asking questions on the message boards, I think it is pretty safe to say that these posts give people some useful information to start solving the questions.

People talking about SparkPeople site

I learned that countless ads are all over the site, and they may be the reason why the site is able to provide the service free to everyone. The problem is that some of the ads are inappropriate, and people talk about this in message boards.
In SparkPeople Cafe, STELLAIU went on to read some blog and noticed the McDonald's ad.

STELLAIU on 10/5/08 3:53 PM: I went to read a blog about the 'healthy' chicken snack wraps from popular fast food restaurants and I noticed this Big Mac and a chance to win a $100 McDonald's gift card. Although McDonald's is making healthier choices for consumers, to me, this seems a little out of place for this ad to be on Sparkpeople?

DONNAMARIEM on 10/5/08 10:49 PM: I notice many unhealthy ads on spark. I don't care if Skinny Cow ice cream has less fat because its still ice cream and they probably add some chemical to add flavor back from when the fat is removed. I thinkthere was some hostess cupcakes or something too in 100 calorie pack ad... sorry its NOT HEALTHY just a portion control gimick!
Gotta laugh or just ignore them because because of sponsors the site is free to us!

ANARIE advocates SparkPeople and suggests in 10/5/08 5:03 PM that "SparkPeople doesn't choose or approve those ads. They have an agreement that lets Google place ads based on keywords on the page. SO can list ads they don't want to allow, but it's hard to keep it updated. If you see one that's not appropriate, try to get a screen shot of it, and click on it to get the URL it leads to. Then you can report it to SparkPeople and they'll try to get it eliminated."

SparkPeople Groups

Besides message boards, users can join or create SparkTeams to achieve their health goals. I joined "College Students," "NY Spark Team," and "Living Healthy In Our 20's."
In "College Students," users were interested in stress eating, depression, time management, and school information of others.

In topic "my biggest diet pitfalls in college are...",
LAVINAAHUJA says on 7/25/08 10:37 AM: I'm a last minute person, so when I have assignments due I'm usually working on it to the exclusion of everything else!!! So there goes the excercise! I try to stick to healty eating habits (by stocking up on healthy foods) but don't really get the time to excercise!!!

SUNNYDAYZ2 says on 3/1/09 9:04 PM: Mine is hands down going out and drinking with my friends. We will take like 5 shots before we leave (500 cals right there) and most likely have at least two more drinks while out (200). Then we will come home at like 2 or 3, make unhealthy food that sounds good, and eat a lot! That's over 1000 added onto my day! I've gotten better about limiting drinking though, but when I was putting on weight I was going out thursday, friday, saturday..eek
Also I have a prob with stress and emotional eating..

What I realized is that in most message boards, people are busy answering the topic, but not necessarily responding to previous posts. I am wondering if people post things to get SparkPoints, or just sharing their stories honestly and looking at what others have to say motivate them enough to pursue their goals.

SparkTeams help gather people with similar goals and interests. Also, since members in the SparkTeams have similar interests and lifestyles, they can understand what each other's going through better, resulting in the increase for chances of success for people.