Pokemon Go — A Blessing or a Curse?
Is Pokémon Go the best or the worst thing that’s happened this year? How has it become a widespread sensation over such a short period of time? Is it a danger and a threat to our safety or is it a hidden blessing in disguise?
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard about the explosion of popularity behind this game that was released just two weeks ago. It’s a location-based, augmented reality mobile game that allows anyone with a smart phone to play for free, capturing, training, and battling virtual creatures called Pokemon. In order to catch these Pokemon, users have to actually go outdoors and explore the real world to find and catch them in places ranging everywhere from forests to malls to bodies of water to locations beside busy highways. And therein lies the “danger”.
THE “DANGEROUS” GAME
The real world exploration has led users to trespassing, blocking roads, going to unsafe areas at night, and just generally failing to stay alert and take their safety into consideration. But is this so different from when cell phones and texting became wildly popular and we had to issue new legislation and guidelines to keep people from having accidents while texting/calling and driving?
The first screen users see when opening the app warns them to “remember to be alert at all times. Stay aware of your surroundings”. Of course, many will neglect this guidance in the bold pursuit of carelessly catching as many Pokémon as they can at any cost, but this can and does happen with plenty of other great things too. It really just takes a little common sense and self-preservation to enjoy the game without risking your life or the lives of others.
Pokemon Go Loading Screen
Naturally, not everyone will play it with the common sense and self-preservation that one would hope, the same way that not everyone will refrain from texting and driving and not everyone will enjoy alcohol in moderation. So yes, Pokémon Go does provide yet another way for irresponsible people to cause accidents and hurt not only themselves, but potentially others. That is inevitable and has unfortunately been the focus in the coverage of the wildly popular new application, but I’d like to focus on the other side of things.
THE BEAUTY OF POKÉMON GO
First of all, the amount of walking that people are doing while playing is hugely beneficial. We are living in an era in which there are fewer and fewer reasons to go on a walk, and the benefits of walking are highly underrated. Simply choosing to walk instead of drive to everyday errands would have an astronomical effect on the number of obese Americans today, but there’s simply no motivation or need for most people to ever walk anywhere.
With all of the apps and technology that allow us to get food, entertainment, socialization, and instant gratification without moving, it’s truly incredible to see an app that serves the opposite purpose become so popular and widely-used in such a short time.
Pokémon Go is accomplishing something incredible unlike any game or app before it. It’s providing a way for people to combine their enjoyment of a mobile game with the benefits of exercise, socializing, nature, and random encounters.
A user can simply walk into a popular Pokéstop (an area where Pokémon gather and users can get items to further their progress) like a park or a beach and easily identify all of the users in the area. And trust me, there are always tons of others involved, and they are not hard to spot anywhere. It creates a reason to engage with and team up with that random person and get to know someone that you ordinarily never would have spoken to.
Pokémon Go is getting more people active and outdoors, moving and socializing with friends and random strangers than anything like it ever has, and it may be the best thing that has happened in a long time for this generation’s health.
It’s providing a powerful new motivator to get people moving and socializing, and many of these users are people desperately in need of the outdoors and exercise. There’s probably nothing else that could have gotten many of these users this level of movement and exposure to social interactions and nature.
OTHER BENEFITS AND A NEW WORLD OF POSSIBILITIES
One of the more surprising aspects of Pokémon Go is the demographic. It’s just as, if not more, popular amongst adults as children. It’s something that just about everyone who was born in the 80's/90's experienced growing up, whether they saw the television show, played the cards, played the many video games, watched the movies, or just regularly heard about it and talked about their favorite Pokémon.
Pokémon Go offers a way for adults to do something that we don’t do nearly enough: play! This blast from the past takes us back to our childhoods and allows us to just take a walk outside and experience the memories from our childhood in a more interactive and entertaining interface. Whether we are going outside with the intention of catching Pokémon or just out with our friends somewhere and the thought comes to mind, we take out our phones and scan the nearby area for Pokémon to catch. It can integrate seamlessly into our everyday lives as an escape from the professionalism and proper behavior of adulthood as we throw Pokéballs at a random Pokémon we found sitting on our table at the restaurant. It’s childish, and ridiculous, yet rejuvenating and addictive.
Pokémon Go has also opened the door to incredible new possibilities. It’s too soon to tell how long the game will retain its popularity before users start to move on to the next thing, but it’s unlocked a new world of apps and games. It wasn’t the first of it’s kind to be released, no, but it was the first of its kind to reach this level of popularity and coverage. This medium of location-based, augmented reality provides a new way for people to escape at any random time, blending smart phones with the real world and allowing people to be entertained while moving and interacting with strangers, nature, and virtual world simultaneously. Today, it’s Pokémon, but tomorrow, it could be gamified exercises, sports, medicine, classes, or other virtual worlds blended with ours. The possibilities are limitless, and I for one can’t wait to see what happens next. Are you ready?
