HEALTH: Pokémon Go is a no-go when it comes to real exercise.
After analyzing the movements of actual players, the researchers calculated that Pokémon Go encouraged people to take an average of 955 extra steps per day in the first week after downloading the game. Assuming that each step covered 31.5 inches and that players walked at a pace of 2.5 miles per hour, the game prompted people to walk for 11 extra minutes each day.
That’s not much. The World Health Organization recommends that adults get at least 150 minutes of aerobic physical activity each week. If you spread that equally throughout the week, you’ll need to get 21.4 minutes of exercise each day – twice as much as Pokémon Go provides.
And that was just for the first week, when the augmented reality game was most addictive. In subsequent weeks, players spent less time walking around catching monsters; by the sixth week, they were back to their pre-Pokémon Go habits.
It does help get people out of the house, which can’t be a bad thing.