ABSTRACT
Introduction: In Australia, it is estimated that 45% of adults meet the aerobic training recommendations (i.e., 150-300 minutes of MVPA) and only 9-30% meet the resistance training (RT) guidelines (i.e., minimum 2 sessions/week). Given the lack of 'scalable' physical activity community-based interventions promoting RT, the aim of this effectiveness trial (based on the published ecofit efficacy trial) was to determine the effects of an innovative community-based multicomponent physical activity intervention promoting resistance and aerobic-based physical activity using outdoor gym equipment, smartphone technology, and social support. Method(s): The ecofit effectiveness trial was evaluated using a two-arm (intervention versus wait-list control) randomised controlled design, with assessments at baseline, 3 (primary time-point) and 9-months (follow-up). Participants were recruited from the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie local government areas, NSW. Eligible participants were aged 18-80 years, had access to a smartphone, did not meet the aerobic and/or resistance-based physical activity guidelines, and passed the Adult Pre-Exercise Screening Tool. The intervention components included (i) smartphone technology (i.e., purpose-built application that included standardised workouts using local outdoor gym equipment across 11 locations), (ii) social support (i.e., option to enrol as a group and join the ecofit Facebook group), and (iii) a 90-minute introductory session. Linear mixed models were conducted with an adjusted alpha (p<.025) to account for the two primary outcomes of upper (i.e., push-up test) and lower (sit-to-stand test) body strength. Result(s): Participants (N=245;mean age 53.44 (SD=13.9);72% women) were recruited. There were no statistically significant (p<.025) group-by-time effects for the primary outcomes (i.e., upper and lower body muscular fitness) at 3-months. At 9-months, however, there were significant improvements in both upper (1.42 repetitions, 95%CI=0.25, 2.59) and lower body (2.6 repetitions, 95%CI=0.41, 4.82) muscular fitness, compared to controls. Among the secondary outcomes at 3-months, mean differences in visceral adipose tissue (-59.52 grams, 95%CI=-122.17, 3.12), and total fat (-494.30 grams, 95%CI=-1012.39, 23.79) approached statistical significance (p's=0.06). Discussion/Conclusion: To our knowledge this is the first community-based RT intervention that has employed a scalable approach targeting the general population. Despite the mixed findings, it was encouraging to see beneficial effects on the primary outcomes, particularly in light of the disruption to the trial caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The positive findings presented warrant further examination of this scalable intervention mode for its dissemination to other local government areas. Impact and application to the field: * The ecofit program is promising with significant statistical and clinical effects and could be considered to be scaled-up in other Local Government Districts across Australia and abroad. This study was funded by NHMRC grant (APP1134914, 2017), registered with the Australian and NZ Clinical Trial Registry (ACTRN12619000868189) and received Human Ethics approval from the University of Newcastle (H-2018-0060). Conflict of interest statement: My co-authors and I acknowledge that we have no conflict of interest of relevance to the submission of this . Copyright © 2022
ABSTRACT
Disconnection is a research topic that attracts increasing amounts of attention. However, there is a lack of research on how different forms of disconnection are related to the production of space and place. This chapter introduces the volume Disentangling: The Geographies of Digital Disconnection, which gathers 12 chapters from different disciplines. Bringing together key insights from the chapters, this introduction overviews the research terrain and presents an agenda for research into the geographies of digital disconnection. It discusses (1) the power geometries of (dis)connection;(2) the existential issues stemming from digitally entangled lives, and (3) how the ambiguities of (dis)connection are accentuated and exposed in time-spaces of social disruption (e.g., during the COVID-19 pandemic). The chapter also proposes disentangling as a complementary term for contextualizing issues of (dis)connection from a social and spatial perspective. Disentangling is ultimately a matter of rethinking and reworking the entangling force of connective media. © Oxford University Press 2021.
ABSTRACT
After the rapid rise of digital networking in the 2000s and 2010s, we are now seeing a rise of interest in how people can disentangle their lives from the increasingly pervasive networks of digital communications. This edited volume contributes to the turn toward digital disconnection research by bringing together an interdisciplinary group of authors with expertise in various forms and philosophies of disentangling. By “disentangling” we mean disconnection not just from media but from a digitalized world, a world in which places and landscapes are increasingly structured around digital connectivity. People increasingly look for strategies that will let them reject, avoid, and rework the pervasive media demanding they remain connected at all times. How might we facilitate autonomy from tendrils of digital surveillance, revalue places over dematerialized flows, and unravel digital dependency? Who gets to disconnect and who does not? How do natural cycles such as sleep and death relate to disentangling? Can we clarify the means and objectives of “digital detox”? Can we map the failures, glitches, contradictions, and paradoxes that plague digital connectivity? What does our willing and unwilling entanglement in digital networks say with regard to social resilience and cultural resistance? The book’s three sections start with questions about ethics and justice associated with the power geometries of digital (dis)connection, then move on to consider digitally entangled lives and afterlives, and conclude with a look at the ambiguities of (dis)connection in time-spaces of the COVID-19 pandemic. © Oxford University Press 2021.