Specifically, we jointly analyze (1) queries to the Microsoft Bing search engine mentioning “pokemon.” We use this to identify which users are likely playing Pokémon Go and (2) physical activity as measured through daily number of steps on the Microsoft Band. We combine data from search engine queries with physical activity measurements from wearable devices. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to combine large-scale wearable and search sensors to retrospectively evaluate large-scale interventions and the first to study the effect of Pokémon Go. How has Pokémon Go affected 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? How does Pokémon Go compare with leading mobile health apps in terms of its ability to change physical activity?Ĥ. Is this effect restricted to particular subpopulations or is it affecting people of all prior activity levels, ages, gender, and weight status?ģ. Is playing Pokémon Go associated with increases in physical activity? How large is this effect and how long does it persist?Ģ. To summarize, our main research questions areġ. Finally, we estimate the impact of Pokémon Go on public health. We compare changes in physical activity for Pokémon Go users with changes for a large control group of US wearable users and further compare the effect of Pokémon Go with 4 leading mobile health apps.
Within these users, we identify 1420 Pokémon Go users based on their search activity and measure the effect of playing the game on their physical activity. 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 3 months. Our study seeks to provide guidance on large-scale interventions represented by the Pokémon Go phenomenon and on the possibilities for increasing physical activity which could be leveraged games for public health purposes. However, its effectiveness for stimulating additional walking is yet to be determined.
Due to this massive penetration, Pokémon Go can be viewed as an intervention for physical activity on a large scale. Pokémon Go was released in the United States on Jand was adopted widely around the world-25 million active users in the United States and 40 million worldwide 500 million downloads worldwide . Pokémon Go is a mobile game combining the Pokémon world through augmented reality with the real world requiring players to physically move around. Of late, there have been anecdotal reports of novel mobile games leading to increased physical activity, most notably for Pokémon Go (other examples include Ingress and Zombies, Run!). However, many interventions have been found to be either ineffective in reaching only populations that were already active or not scalable across varying cultural, geographic, social, and economic contexts .
Numerous studies have called for population-wide approaches . Efforts to stimulate physical activity hold opportunity for improving public health. Only 21% of US adults meet official physical activity guidelines (at least 150 minutes a week of physical activity for adults), and less than 30% of US high school students get at least 60 minutes of physical activity every day . Recent analyses estimate that physical inactivity contributes to 5.3 million deaths per year worldwide and that it is responsible for a worldwide economic burden of US $67.5 billion due to health care expenditures and productivity losses . People who are physically active tend to live longer, have lower risk for heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, depression, and some cancers, and are more likely to maintain a healthy weight. Physical activity is critical to human health. “Those who think they have no time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness.”
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