“Take Everything With a Pinch of Salt”: Learning to Navigate Fitness on Social Media

Recent research has indicated a number of concerns for women who engage with social media content for fitness, including misinformation, impacts on body image, and privacy concerns surrounding the sharing of sensitive data. To explore this further, we carried out a qualitative survey (N=97), in-depth interviews (N=17), and a process of shared looking (n=10), focusing on women’s experiences of navigating fitness content online. Following a reflective thematic analysis, our poster delineates three themes focusing on 1) qualities and characteristics of trust; 2) working with the algorithm; and 3) competency and capacity for control. Based on these findings, we present a series of directions for future research that might improve women’s experience of using social media for fitness, with a particular focus on helping users build accurate mental models of social media sites and the algorithms which govern them.