Unless you have been living under a rock or own a flip-phone, I am sure you have heard about or are already on level five of the new augmented-reality mobile game, Pokemon Go. While I am sure I am about to lose a mass majority of my friends for writing this article, I definitely have some negative feelings toward this game. Before you exit out of this article or delete me as your Facebook friend, hear me out. Don’t get me wrong, I think this game is awesome. I love that after taking somewhat of a hiatus, Nintendo dropped this bomb of game, made billions of dollars and now has more downloads than Twitter and Tinder (I guess we decided it was more important to catch them all than to date them all). I also love that it gets people out and interacting with each other. This game is something you can do outside and it definitely keeps you active, but I see some huge flaws with this game beginning to arise. There is one flaw in particular makes me very upset.
No matter how cool this game is, it appears to be having some territorial issues and giving its players no sense of boundaries. At first, I saw this game as an insanely creative marketing strategy. The use of the GPS Maps via Google allows you to navigate yourself to any location to catch Pokemon, battle it out in a gym or load up on some more Pokeballs just about anywhere, including businesses. For example, if you were out looking for Pokemon on a hot day and saw a Pikachu in an ice cream shop, you may walk to the ice cream shop, catch the Pikachu and then buy an ice cream to cool off. But what if instead of an ice cream shop, you saw the Pikachu at a playground full of young children?
I am sure whoever is reading this article is probably a completely harmless individual, and I am not making accusations. However, what if that was where your children or the children you nanny played? What if you saw an adult wandering around aimlessly on a playground looking for Pokemon? What if this person wasn’t really looking for Pokemon?
Now I know this getting a tad bit dark, but the truth is this world isn’t always as safe as we think it is, and people don’t always have the best intentions. This game could be used as potential lure for children and can be a harmful situation to some of these locations. I understand that a lot of these places are public, but does that justify having a group of young to old adults wandering around locations heavily populated with children? And this doesn’t just go for places that children can be found most, but anywhere that feels uncomfortable to have total strangers wandering around for any other reason that the purpose of that location.
I believe that the owners of these locations should have the right to refuse to participate in the game. This is a free country and we are entitled to so much, but that doesn’t mean we can make others feel uncomfortable or compromise their safety all for a game. I also believe that if too many people complain to the location about feeling uncomfortable due to the game that the location should make the decision to stop participating in it.
Not to mention there should be age restrictions on this game. Young children (who shouldn’t have a smartphone) might be playing the game and wandering off to the locations placed on the map. There is no telling who is there waiting to not just catch a Pokemon, but to catch a kid.
I understand that this may come across as harsh and may implant a scary thought or two, but we need to be mindful and aware of surroundings. I wrote this mainly on behalf of young children and their worried parents, but anyone of any age could be attacked at anytime or any place even when they are paying attention. Imagine if you are walking to your car at night while looking down at your phone to play Pokemon Go and someone tried to harm you.
Like I had said before, this game is super cool and it is definitely worth downloading, but it is by no means worth risking your life or making others feel uncomfortable. Haven’t you heard that it is all fun and games until somebody gets hurt?
