Qualitative investigation of online interactions affecting runners’ experiences and self-presentation on Strava, highlighting the impact of social media features.
The exercise platform Strava combines self-tracking capabilities with social media features and enables interaction, inspiration and competition between its users. With inspiration from Erving Goffman’s theory this study investigates how online interaction affects Strava-users’ running experiences and self-presentations. Through semi-structured interviews supplemented by netnographic observations, Strava is analyzed as a performative scene where physical and social ideals are staged and negotiated. The study identifies how Strava’s visual feedback mechanism and interactions from other users both strengthen motivation and create performance pressures. The self-presentation of Strava-users is formed through roles that are negotiated in the intersection between authenticity and idealization. Informed by Axel Honneth’s ideas about recognition as a macro-sociological backdrop, we discuss how young Strava-users’ struggle for recognition can be seen as a reflection of digital behavior that blurs the distinction between the private and a solidarity sphere. Accordingly, the study contributes to an enhanced understanding of the interplay between technology, social interaction, and identity constructions in modern digital sport communities.
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Hallgren et al. (2026) studied this question.
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