Research published in the Christmas edition of The British Medical Journal (BMJ) delves into the effectiveness of the Pokémon GO application on health. Is a good exercise? According to the conclusions of the study, the effect is moderate and lasts a short time , barely a month and a half, so it does not seem to be a good choice to keep fit.
The study, conducted by researchers from Harvard University (USA) and coordinated by Katherine Howe, Christian Suharlim and Peter Ueda, involved 1,182 people between the ages of 18 and 35 , smartphone users iPhone 6, during the month of August 2016. All of them were surveyed to determine if this augmented reality game, which has been downloaded more than 500 million times , had any impact on physical activity.
560 (47.4%) of the volunteers played Pokémon GO at “trainer level” or higher than 5, a goal that is reached after walking for approximately two hours. Taking into account the step count automatically recorded by smartphones, the results revealed that the average number of steps per day during the first week of play increased by 955, an additional 11 minutes of extra walking per day.
Despite this apparent positive result, although small, the effect of the game seems to be diluted with the passage of time , since the steps are gradually reduced but pause until they finish completely after six weeks of playing Pokémon GO. That is, a month and a half after having installed the application, the participants returned to their physical activity prior to the installation of the app. Age, sex, race, weight, or place of residence did not change the results.
