Meta-Analysis
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatry. Sep 19, 2025; 15(9): 108847
Published online Sep 19, 2025. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v15.i9.108847
Effects of technology-enhanced physical activity on brain and mental health in youth: An umbrella review of meta-analyses
Zi-Qi Wang, Si-Yu Hong, Zi-Xuan Jia, Yi Zhang, Sha-Sha Ma, Xian-Gui Bu, Wen-Jun Wang
Zi-Qi Wang, Si-Yu Hong, Zi-Xuan Jia, Yi Zhang, Sha-Sha Ma, Xian-Gui Bu, Graduate School of Education, Shandong Sport University, Jinan 250102, Shandong Province, China
Wen-Jun Wang, Department of General Education, Shandong First Medical University, Tai’an 271016, Shandong Province, China
Co-corresponding authors: Xian-Gui Bu and Wen-Jun Wang.
Author contributions: Wang ZQ was responsible for conceptualization, methodology, investigation, formal analysis, and writing original draft; Hong SY was responsible for questionnaire design, resources, writing review, and editing; Jia ZX was responsible for literature review, data curation, formal analysis, and writing original draft; Zhang Y was responsible for methodology, data analysis support, writing review, and editing; Ma SS was responsible for data curation, visualization, writing review, and editing; Bu XG was responsible for supervision, project administration, writing review, and editing; Wang WJ was responsible for investigation, validation, writing review, and editing; Bu XG and Wang WJ have played important and indispensable roles in the manuscript preparation as the co-corresponding authors; all authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Supported by the 2025 Undergraduate Research Project of the Shandong Society for Innovation and Development in Philosophy and Social Sciences, No. Z-DXS25007.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest related to this study.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2009 Checklist.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Xian-Gui Bu, Professor, Graduate School of Education, Shandong Sport University, Shiji Avenue, Jinan 250102, Shandong Province, China. buxiangui@sdpei.edu.cn
Received: April 25, 2025
Revised: May 28, 2025
Accepted: July 17, 2025
Published online: September 19, 2025
Processing time: 124 Days and 7.8 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: This umbrella review synthesizes high-level evidence from systematic reviews and meta-analyses to assess the effects of technology-enhanced physical activity (TEPA) interventions on brain function and mental health in children and adolescents. Findings indicate that TEPA—such as active video games, mobile applications, and wearable technologies—can yield significant improvements in cognitive performance, executive functioning, and psychological well-being. These results offer compelling support for the strategic integration of digital physical activity tools in pediatric health promotion and neurodevelopmental interventions.