Francesca Setiffi

The gamification of risk: how health apps foster self-confidence and why this is not enough

Weight loss apps enable users to quantify many aspects of food consumption, beginning with calories intake. Users of weight loss apps can also participate in online forums that act as digital self-help groups. These apps also include several features related to game playing or gamification such as avatars, points and virtual awards. Gamification has the aim of strengthening motivation to carry out a (boring) task. We downloaded the 20 most popular free weight loss apps in Google Play. We analysed app descriptions provided by developers, comments about the selected apps in online forums and user reviews. We focused on four of these apps, since they had some special functions. We found that users’ risk management was based on a mixed method that combined quantification and gamification, that is, rationality and emotions. Quantification, which includes self-tracking, data analysis and graphic layout, provides the ‘rational’ basis for dietary regimes, while gamification provides the emotional support needed to maintain motivation and continue with the diet. Our analysis provides support for the emotion–risk assemblage theory and the in-between strategy. Our analysis reinforces the importance of emotions in risk management. However, these dieting apps are based on a reductionist approach to obesity and weight loss, as obesity is framed as an individual problem, while weight loss is seen as dependent on individual motivation. Such framing tends to conceal the social determinant of health and the social and political causes of obesity.

Riding free-riders? A study of the phenomenon of BlaBlaCar in Italy

The chapter analyses the case study of BlaBlaCar, which is a for-profit online platform offering carpooling services to connect people who need to travel with drivers who have empty seats. The carpooling offered by BlaBlaCar partially constitutes an act of contemporary collaborative consumption (CCC) because despite the brokerage company involved, which should lead us to count this practice of consumption among typical sharing economy activities, some of those involved in the ride sharing feel they are part of a community that advocates an alternative way of life to the classic model of private car use. Our empirical research has been carried out to understand the meanings and practices within the ‘social world’ of BlaBlaCar users. We investigate the evolution of carpooling to understand whether and how users’ carpooling experiences fluctuate over time. To reach these goals, we conducted 70 semi-structured interviews with people between 18 and 35 years old who had interacted with the collaborative platform at least twice. All the users involved in the fieldwork lived in the Veneto region of Italy, and the data were collected in 2015. We used the ATLAS.ti software to elaborate on the data for content analysis. The most important result of the research is the clarification of the relationship that drivers establish with the figure of the ‘stranger’.

Crisis and Consumption in Europe

The crisis has been gnawing away at Europe for years now. The various European states, each with their own particular economic, cultural and social characteristics, have responded differently to the challenge, often with reactions that have brought those very differences that distinguish them to the fore. Within the general landscape of these increasing social and economic differences, both between the states and within them - also brought about by the deep crisis suffered by the same middle-class which led the economic and social expansion that came before - it is possible to observe some significant differences in both the reactions and consequences across the various member states. The problem has been approached from many perspectives in economic, politological and sociological scholarship, but here we have chosen to examine it through the consumer. The special section “Crisis and Consumption in Europe” represents an attempt to understand the different strategies of reaction adopted by European consumers following the economic and social changes that began in 2008.