What is the most moved piece in chess?

I just watched two more games. At first I suspected probably the rook. Now I think definitely the rook. Pawns get moved a lot early, but they often get traded. Rooks tend to last much longer in the game. I just watched another GM game. The first rook move wasn't until move 24 (he didn't castle) and it STILL had 18 moves in the game. Compared to 17 for all his pawns. 

Rooks get moved the most. Then pawns. Then bishops and knights. King and queen the least. On average.

definitely pawn

To be honest, it’s definitely a pawn. Lots of studies approved that

Pawn I think.

i think knight

What about all of the closed positions that occur where knights move the most?

In those games, or games where a knight is left for the endgame, then the most moved piece would be a knight. But overall, it's the rook because rooks are more common in endgames. 

What specific study, or studies, approve that? 

This is old, but I would guess the data wouldn't be drastically different with updated games.

https://www.vanheusden.com/cchess/datamining_on_chess.html

That's very helpful. It just doesn't seem to square with what happens in  actual games here though. Maybe it has something to do with length of games. Games that are resigned early will definitely have more pawn moves as the rooks aren't out yet. 

I think pawn moves aren't really remembered because they're not very significant in the opening, and you're used to using them every time so u don't pay much attention to it, where as if ur moving a rook around it's usually when the positions more difficult and the rook move is more important, so you keep a mental note of it more perhaps. 

pawn or queen lol.

guys there isn't even a discussion anymore. the data says that the pawns are the clear winners.

Yep. Thanks @Martin_Stahl!

According to the page, it was a mix of master and amateur games, with an "Average number of moves per game: 57.63 (white+black!)" so it should have been pretty representative of game lengths. That said, I would imagine that openings and endgames with pawn pushes and promotion, along with the fact there are 8 pawns, plays into more moves.

It seems obvious from the data that pawns are used the most, but before I saw that, I would have said knights.  They seem to make most of the attacks, at least early on in the game.