Doing some things for sure you will want your camera to be set and forget
For the most you will want to mount the camera on something, a selfie stick is one of the things but that you can not use often as you need both your hands, and it can even be dangerous interfering with equipment like parachute lines ASO
If you are not selfie minded, you can use yourself as the mount, and put the camera on chest / head / wrist, or strap it to most parts of bicycles / motorcycles
you want your settings done before starting, though say on a bicycle you could change settings at a red light using your phone.
Action cameras, you dont film with like a camcorder, you set it up, aim it as good as you can, start a recording and then get going, and hope for the best result.
For instance if you are skiing it is often you see video from the whole ride as several times during the ride the skiier will forget the action camera on his pole or selfie stick, so you get those highlight bleeps kind of footage.
That issue you dont have in cases where the camera are mounted on something rigid.