Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Serious Games
Date Submitted: Sep 17, 2024
Date Accepted: Feb 20, 2025
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Physical Activity and Enjoyment in Active Virtual Reality Games in Youth
ABSTRACT
Background:
Virtual reality (VR) gaming is growing in popularity but little is known about physical activity (PA) during gameplay. Two popular VR games are Gorilla Tag (GT) and Beat Saber (BS). Little is known about these games in youth.
Objective:
The purpose of this study was to investigate the enjoyment, intensity, and amount of PA while playing GT and BS in early adolescent youth.
Methods:
Sixteen participants played two VR games (GT and BS) randomly in a single session. Both games followed the same procedure: 10-minute familiarization period, 5 minutes of rest, 15 minutes of gameplay, and 10 minutes rest. Participants wore a heart rate (HR) monitor to track heart rate reserve (% HRR) and accelerometers to monitor time in sedentary, light physical activity (LPA), and moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) of the arm and whole-body. The Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale-child version (PACES) and ratings of perceived exertion were completed after each game. Dependent t-tests compared measures between games.
Results:
The results revealed that average and maximum %HRR were significantly higher during GT than BS, with PA intensity reaching light for both games and moderate for GT. Arm MVPA and whole-body MVPA and LPA were greater during GT than BS. Arm and whole-body sedentary time were significantly lower during GT than BS. GT and BS were rated as highly enjoyable.
Conclusions:
These results suggest that BS produced light intensity PA and GT produced light to moderate-intensity PA in early adolescent youth, with both games rated as highly enjoyable.
Citation
