Catching 'em all could also help you catch good health, according to new Duke research.
Presented at an American Heart Association conference earlier this month, the study—led by nursing graduate student Hanzhang Xu—showed that Pokémon Go users walked on average 2,000 more steps per day.
“We wanted to see whether Pokémon Go could provide an enjoyable way to engage people in regular physical activity,” Xu said.
When Pokémon Go—an augmented reality application in which players travel to capture animated creatures—was released in July 2016, Xu was one of the millions of people who headed outside to try to "catch ‘em all."
“Pokémon Go was a pretty popular game last summer. I was a player, and I felt like I definitely walked more after playing the game,” she said. “But during that time, there were very few studies looking at whether playing this game could increase individuals’ levels of physical activity.”
The study recruited 167 Pokémon players—who were iPhone users—and asked them to provide screenshots of their daily steps via the iPhone Health app for the three weeks before and after they played the game. Researchers compared the participants’ number of daily steps before and after using the app. Xu noted that people who normally exercise very little experienced a large increase in their physical activity after playing Pokémon Go.
“Those that are overweight actually benefit more from the game, and those that spend more time playing the game actually walk more after they play the game," Xu said.
Xu explained that the study has implications for the types of physical activity recommended by physicians. The study’s results indicate that apps like Pokémon Go could offer “alternative” exercise options for people who do not meet the daily recommendation for physical activity.
“Currently, the physical activity guidelines recommend a series of physical activities such as running and swimming to promote health,” Xu said. “But for those people who are not able to do it, don’t like do it or don’t have time to do it, those [traditional] recommendations won’t work.”
The study also addresses concerns about the negative effect of digital culture on children, Xu noted.
“One of the big concerns about kids playing mobile phone games or computer games is that they just sit there and play—it’s a sedentary lifestyle,” she said.
The new research, however, shows that such games could actually encourage people to be more active.
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