Have you ever paused your run early as you’re getting tired so your average mile looks faster? Or “forgotten” to log that extra cookie in MyFitnessPal to stay under your daily goal? Or pushed that extra bit harder in your workout because you know the stats will be sent to your Twitter feed automatically?

When it comes to fitness tracking, many of us shout about our achievements on social media (for the first few months at least). But in contrast, we give very little thought to the way we behave when it comes to manually inputting data, changing our routines to make sure our stats look more favourable or avoiding sharing data altogether out of fear that they won’t look good compared to someone else’s. Many won’t even realise they’re doing it.

These tweaks to our behaviour may seem small. Yet it’s important to be aware of how and why we make decisions in order to reap the biggest benefits from our tech. And it’s important for tech companies to understand too, so they can create products and services that encourage authenticity and positive behavioural change — not false stats and a fear of sharing with others.

Click here to read the full feature on Wareable.