Walking Competition to Enhance Daily Physical Activity and Social Engagement Among Older Adults

The aim for the study is to use the function WeRun in the application WeChat to encourage
physical activity and social engagement among community dwelling older adults and their
family members and friends. The investigators will ask participants in the activity
competition group to use the WeRun function in WeChat to track their daily walking steps and
to compete with their group members for 4 weeks. To encourage social engagement among their
group members, the daily walking steps will be calculated and the participant who has the
highest step count in the group will be indicated each day.Those in the control group will
only use the WeRun function in WeChat to track their own walking steps.

The investigators expect that the participants in the activity competition group will walk
more often and report more social activities than those in the control group, who will not
compete with their peers in daily walking. To test these predictions, daily walking steps and
the total walking steps per week will be obtained and compared across groups. The nature and
the extent of change will be analyzed over the four weeks. Exercise self-efficacy will be
measured using a measure based on Bandura's model. Social engagement will be measured using
the short Lubben Social Network Scale, a self report measure of social engagement on a
12-item scale, and physical activity will be measured using International Physical Activity
Questionnaire (IPAQ), a self-report measure of physical activity on a 12-item scale.

Inclusion Criteria:

- Participants who are 60 or older who have a cellphone, with either android or iPhone
system with data plan.

- They must be fit enough to walk for at least 20 minutes at a time.

- English speaking

Exclusion Criteria:

- Unable to walk more than 20 minutes;

- do not have smart phone with data plan.

- younger than 60