What the heck is Pokemon Go and why is everybody playing it?
The other day I noticed a tweet from my 19 year old daughter Casey who’s off at college for summer school “It’s 1am & I’m running around the lake trying to catch Pokemon”. My first thought was she better be at class the next morning! My second thought is that I better find out what’s going on with this Pokemon thing!….that was the news person coming out in me that’s looking for story angles.
For those of you like me that need a little education on the subject and like to keep up with social trends, this virtual reality scavenger hunt has quickly become the most popular downloaded app. The game uses the G-P-S and camera on your cell phone to send players real world locations to search for Pokemon characters, and these characters are showing up everywhere…including memorial sites around the world like the Nazi death camp Auschwitz museum. You can imagine this did not go over very well.
The game’s popularity has no age boundaries, more than 20 million people are playing Pokemon Go each day. The problem is that people are playing the game while doing other things, like walking across streets or even driving cars. There are stories about players wandering into people’s yards, trespassing on private property and having car accidents…all because they’re trying to catch a cartoon character named Pikachu. It’s created such a stir that law enforcement agencies across the country are issuing warnings. Police in Austin recently held a press conference through Periscope on the dangers of Pokemon Go.
So yes there are safety issues and it sounds kinda silly, but aren’t you just the least little bit curious to find out what the craze is all about? I hate to admit it but I’m pretty sure I’m going to make Casey teach me how to play when she comes home this weekend. So watch out for those gamers, those pop up Pokémon characters and don’t judge….you know what they say “adapt or die”.
Follow Marlee on Twitter @MarleeMcCormick