Technology is a major component in our lives, and it certainly comes with benefits and drawbacks. Which side wins? When it comes to exercise, technology certainly can enhance a user’s experience, and connect them to other users providing more motivation and feedback to achieve your goals more easily.

When it comes to children, of course there are more factors to consider. Adding unneeded technology to their lives is certainly frowned upon, and for good reason. But when technology can make a child that much more likely to exercise, and sustain it over a long period of time, the overall perception certainly becomes a bit more murky.

For years I sold Fitbit to schools, and one of my common themes I would bring up to clients to enhance our selling proposition- Fitbits are purely activity tracking devices. Children cannot take pictures, send text messages to friends, play games, etc. Still, my brother who has 3 school age kids, frowns upon giving his children any sort of tracking device, though they have a fair amount of screen time each day outside of school. His reasoning, in my opinion, has more to do with fears of his children getting addicted to step goals or beating friends.

If Peloton, or a competitor would release a stationary bike designed for children to compete against one another, the hesitation would be loud. This article paints the picture I certainly feel the advantages of a bike outweigh any of the drawbacks. Of course it’s great if the child can actually ride a bike outside instead, but that isn’t always an option. Having a young daughter, my wife and I will certainly have reservations about our daughter riding outside with an aggressive driver behind the wheel.

If I were 10 years old and needed to exercise, I certainly would find this Little Tikes option far more engaging and motivating to pursue, and continue to use. With everything we know that exercise brings to the table, we need to look at all methods of improving exercise experiences with children with open minds!