The Strava app is now used by 100 million athletes in 195 countries. Allowing all amateur athletes to share their statistics, social communities have been created and today play a major role in the motivation of many running or cycling enthusiasts. But what does the instantaneous and systematic publication of sports statistics do to the practice of amateur sports? We went to meet one of the most fervent users of the application, the ultra-trailer nicknamed Green Cap.
It all starts with a comparison. On the Strava platform, the algorithm suggests that I subscribe to a athlete whose nickname catches my attention: a man named Green cap, who soberly describes himself as a “Parisian trail runner” and regularly runs on the banks of the Seine. A profile at first sight very common on the platform. At first sight only, because a closer consultation of “our juxtaposed statistics” alerts me to the value of the user I have just encountered: the so-called Green Cap runs no less than 200 kilometers on average per week and devotes 24 whole hours per week running.
By subscribing to this exceptional profile, joining its 20,000 or so subscribers, I discovered that Cap Verte publishes a daily report of its racing session with exemplary regularity, and this since 2014. Each of its activities being embellished with short comments on his physical condition, I also realize that he frequently practices running or trail running, even though he seems to be recovering from injuries. How to explain the obsessive regularity of the amateur trail runner @Casquette Verte? What does the Strava social network do to our amateur sports practices? Doesn’t such a complete sports social network insidiously contribute to the democratization of a form of sports addiction?
“If it’s not on Strava, it didn’t exist”
If you do not practice running or cycling, it is very likely that you have missed out on Strava : created in 2009, Strava is a social network dedicated to athletes that allows them to publish their activities once they have recorded them via their connected watches. The specificity of this application – which evolves in a highly competitive environment – is due to its sleek design, its ergonomics, but also now to the significant number of its users: more than 100 million sportsmen and women – of which more than 75% are men — use Strava, according to the latest figures provided by the company.
To attract new users, Strava can count on the proselytism of its members, who are strongly inclined to brag about their performance, with statistics (offered by the application) in support. This is how Cap Verte discovered the application in 2014: “At the office, a colleague showed me on Strava the routes he was doing, almost as proof”, he recalls. And it was to prove to his colleague that he was also capable of it that he took up running, joining the “athletes’ social network” by mimicry.
The social dimension of Strava has always been at the heart of the company’s development strategy: on the application, we issue “kudos” to salute the performances of our sports friends, we share photos and videos to satisfy the curiosity of his community. Bastien Soulé is a sports sociologist, he studied the effects on athletes of the democratization of these applications and evokes a form of labeling efforts via Strava: “ There are digital identity strategies that are evident on Strava (…). For example, many practitioners rename their outings when they go running with their daughter or girlfriend so that subscribers understand that it is not their performance. “.
“Some say to me: ‘If I can’t record my outing, I won’t race, it’s wasteful, it’s a waste of time’.”
Like any social network, Strava is a formidable vector of interconnection: Bastien Soulé underlines in his surveys the motivational role of these virtual social communities in the practice of many athletes. But like any social network, Strava also has certain drifts related to the control and enhancement of its social image. The sociologist noted, during his interviews, certain changes in the apprehension of amateur sports practice: “Some people tell me: ‘If I can’t record my outing, I won’t run, it’s a waste, it’s a waste of time’. There are people who say they take more pleasure in taking measurements than in the effort itself. » he explains.
A slogan was even broadcast a few years ago on social networks within the sports community, testifying to the considerable place occupied by the social network in their practice: “If it’s not on Strava it didn’t exist “.
From motivation to “bigorexia”, or sports addiction
Of course, athletes – even amateurs – did not wait for Strava to measure their efforts on personal logbooks or to feel satisfaction at the mere mention of their prowess in their circles of friends. But the publication of precise statistics for each of the physical activities carried out can push some people to surpass themselves, sometimes forgetting their physical condition to meet the implicit expectations of their community.
Green Cap, who travels 200 kilometers every week and has built his notoriety on the networks thanks to his exceptional performance and regularity, admits that he has already had a session going beyond injury and fatigue, to prove to his community. that he had achieved these weekly objectives: “At the beginning, I wanted to reach my 100 km per week, and as long as it was not posted 100 km per week, I forgot about fatigue, I changed my schedule to get the small reward, to see the good figure. »
However, the fact of carrying out your daily sports session despite injuries or an advanced state of fatigue is part of the criteria for “bigorexia”, a term used to designate sports addiction, a disease recognized by the WHO since 2011, very well described in the work of Servane Heudiard, amateur athlete with this disorder.
While her addiction to sport pushed her to perform cycling sessions in the middle of the night, under torrential rains, in an advanced state of fatigue, it was not until several serious cycling accidents that she admitted to being subject to an addiction. Non-user of Strava for fear of accentuating her problem, she insists in her book on the pernicious aspect of this addiction: “The particularly perverse aspect of this addiction is that sport has a positive image (…). No one will ever judge positively the behavior of an alcoholic or a bulimic when almost all people are admiring to see me so often on the bike or go for my rowing session whatever the weather. she writes.
It is therefore common to see certain behaviors that can be considered at risk highly valued in the comments under the publications of Green Cap, who is congratulated for running again the day after his victory in an ultra-trail of 160 kilometers in Sweden, or who is admired for his ability to run despite his rib or knee injuries.
The success of the Strava app, which recorded 68% growth in 2021, is therefore not so surprising: allowing the quantification and publicity of one’s sporting practice in a society that places physical activity and surpassing oneself at the top of social values could only work. And as if the company’s managers had perceived the potential abuses of the application, Strava recently acquired an injury prevention app of the athlete Recovery Athletics App. The famous concept of Pharmacon developed by the philosopher Bernard Stiegler, to qualify the ambivalence of the digital revolution, between remedy and poison, could not have found a better illustration.
