Abstract
BackgroundPhysical activity helps people maintain a healthy weight and reduces the risk for several chronic diseases. Although this knowledge is widely recognized, adults and children in many countries around the world do not get recommended amounts of physical activity. Although many interventions are found to be ineffective at increasing physical activity or reaching inactive populations, there have been anecdotal reports of increased physical activity due to novel mobile games that embed game play in the physical world. The most recent and salient example of such a game is Pokémon Go, which has reportedly reached tens of millions of users in the United States and worldwide.ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to quantify the impact of Pokémon Go on physical activity.MethodsWe study the effect of Pokémon Go on physical activity through a combination of signals from large-scale corpora of wearable sensor data and search engine logs for 32,000 Microsoft Band users over a period of 3 months. Pokémon Go players are identified through search engine queries and physical activity is measured through accelerometers.ResultsWe find that Pokémon Go leads to significant increases in physical activity over a period of 30 days, with particularly engaged users (ie, those making multiple search queries for details about game usage) increasing their activity by 1473 steps a day on average, a more than 25% increase compared with their prior activity level (P<.001). In the short time span of the study, we estimate that Pokémon Go has added a total of 144 billion steps to US physical activity. Furthermore, Pokémon Go has been able to increase physical activity across men and women of all ages, weight status, and prior activity levels showing this form of game leads to increases in physical activity with significant implications for public health. In particular, we find that Pokémon Go is able to reach low activity populations, whereas all 4 leading mobile health apps studied in this work largely draw from an already very active population.ConclusionsMobile apps combining game play with physical activity lead to substantial short-term activity increases and, in contrast to many existing interventions and mobile health apps, have the potential to reach activity-poor populations. Future studies are needed to investigate potential long-term effects of these applications.
Highlights
Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness.Edward Stanley, Earl of Derby, 20 December 1873Physical activity is critical to human health
We study the influence of Pokémon Go on physical activity through a combination of wearable sensor data and search engine query logs for 31,793 users over a period of three months
How has Pokémon Go impacted physical activity in the United States and what is its potential impact on public if the game was able to sustain the engagement of its users? Our study provides guidance on societal-scale interventions represented by the Pokémon Go phenomenon and on the possibilities for increasing physical activity that could be achieved with additional engagement
Summary
Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness.Edward Stanley, Earl of Derby, 20 December 1873Physical activity is critical to human health. Physical activity helps people maintain a healthy weight and reduces the risk for several chronic diseases This knowledge is widely recognized, adults and children in many countries around the world do not get recommended amounts of physical activity. Results: We find that Pokémon Go leads to significant increases in physical activity over a period of 30 days, with engaged users (i.e., those making multiple search queries for details about game usage) increasing their activity by 1,473 steps a day on average, a more than 25% increase compared to their prior activity level (p < 10−15). Pokémon Go has been able to increase physical activity across men and women of all ages, weight status, and prior activity levels showing this form of game leads to increases in physical activity with significant implications for public health. While challenges remain in sustaining engagement of users over the long-term, if Pokémon Go was able to sustain the engagement of its current user base, the game could have a measurable
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