When Pokémon Go arrived earlier this year amidst a flurry of optimistic headlines and anecdotal tales of weight loss from its users, it seemed that gaming might have finally broken its sedentary chains and emerged, pale-faced, in the summer sun. Hope ran high that the country's flabbiest days were behind us.Some of the decline may result from technical problems, like server errors or lag in gameplay. But the bigger culprit is likely boredom—the game is just too simple for most people. "We just need to be more creative in getting people to keep exercising," says Christian Suharlim, a postdoctoral researcher at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.The new Harvard study jibes with a previous study that found that the average Pokémon Go user takes an extra 192 steps per day. But that number begins to drop after about three weeks, and the study didn't monitor use beyond three months.The game proves that people are willing to take augmented reality games outside their homes. And given the insane number of people who played it, copycats will surely arise. Which, hey—sounds like fun. Let's just hope that the games that arise in Pokémon's wake offer the kind of gameplay that keeps people interested once the excitement of walking around the block wears off.
And while the exciting new augmented-reality concept did get some players off the couch, its effect on daily exercise was, on average, far less impressive than initial reports indicated. By surveying 1,182 Pokémon Go users ages 18 to 35, research from Harvard University's department of epidemiology found that during the first week of installing the game, players logged an extra 955 steps each day. That's a nice gain, but it's a small slice of the 10,000-step daily goal that comes programmed into most activity trackers. But the real problem is the drop-off: After six weeks of play, most Pokémon Go users were back to their normal routines.
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