Pokémon Go may be the greatest unintentional health fad ever

Pokémon Go may be the biggest unintentional health fad ever.

Since launching last week, the augmented reality app has exploded in popularity. Free to download on your iPhone or Android, it uses location data from mobile phones to help users chase fictional Pokémon characters around their environs, which are displayed back on their phones. In one week, the app has already become so popular that it’s rivaling Twitter in terms of the volume of daily active users, Vox’s German Lopez writes in his indispensable Pokémon Go explainer.

But there’s another interesting outcome of the game’s rise that its makers likely didn’t anticipate: It seems to be getting people moving. 

Unlike most games, which engage only your thumbs, Pokémon Go requires you to walk, run, and even jump — all great forms of exercise. Gizmodo noted that this may even be driving a "pandemic" of sore legs, since so many users have complained about pain from their Pokémon "workouts."

How much more active are users? So far, all we have are these anecdotes. But there is some preliminary data from the Cardiogram for Apple Watch and the fitness tracking company Jawbone that suggests an uptick in physical activity among users since the launch of the game.

Now, let’s be clear: The game may encourage physical activity, and we certainly could use more of it. But it’s an unlikely fix for the obesity epidemic, given that low physical activity is not the main driver of obesity.

And this surge in use may be temporary — just as Pokémon’s first burst of popularity was in the 1990s. So there’s no reason to assume all this animated creature chasing will lead to the kind of real behavior change that has a lasting impact on health.

What’s more, reviews of the evidence on using active video games as a way to increase physical activity and improve health show the evidence is mixed, and the jury is still out on whether it's effective. The data we have on mobile apps and devices to track and encourage exercise may be instructive: It suggests they only lead to temporary changes among most users, which eventually fade away.

Maybe Pokémon Go will be different. Maybe, as Vox’s Ezra Klein writes, augmented reality technology will advance quickly, more and more people will latch on, and instead of sitting to play the game, they’ll run and walk.

Or maybe it’ll be a passing health fad, like all the others

http://www.vox.com/2016/7/12/12159198/pokemon-go-exercise-increase