A new study of mobile game Pokémon Go has been presented recently at a meeting of the American Heart Association, as reported by Time, and some interesting information has come out about the game, including that players are twice as likely to meet their goal of 10,000 steps a day.
"Pokémon Go is probably one of the most popular mobile games in history," said Hanzhang Xu, author of the study and graduate student at Duke University School of Nursing. "Unlike traditional mobile games, it requires the players to be active and travel around in the real world. It has great potential to promote physical activity."
The report asked 167 iPhone users who played Pokémon Go to screenshot their daily steps from the iPhone app over a period of around 50 days. Before Pokémon Go, their steps averaged 5,600 a day, increasing to 7,600 afterwards, becoming twice as likely to hit 10,000 if they were playing. Even users with really low activity levels walked nearly 3,000 more steps each day because of the game.
Xu also said the game "has the potential to work as social media and break the ice of isolation [...] Games like Pokémon Go may provide an alternative way to encourage exercise." Do you think it's a positive force and a good way to promote exercise?