I'm sure we've all heard about, or even a lot of us are even engaging in, Pokémon's latest invention, Pokémon Go. For those of you who do not know, Pokémon Go is the latest game where users can "discover Pokémon in the real world." It uses real locations near you to allow you to discover Pokémon far outside your basement television set limits. The church down the street from you, your school, or just popular shopping locations have now turned into hot Pokémon spots where you can discover Pokéballs or characters.
This revolutionary "video" game is a brilliant business idea, and theoretically a great idea to get people out in the town moving about. But I think this game is more detrimental to society than we realize. If people thought the technology takeover was bad before, it's even worse now. Pokémon Go doesn't just appeal to kids or teens invested in video games; it appeals to everyone. People of all ages, gamers or not, are becoming addicted to the excitement of the game. I'm sure a video game that allows you to play across the limits of you entire city is appealing to most: You won't have to feel guilty about sitting in a dark basement for hours at a time. But really this game just enhances the obsession over our cell phones.
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Broadripple Village is a popular shopping, eating, and tourist location in Indianapolis, Indiana. The area has sort of a hipster vibe with it's variety of cafés, unique stores and restaurants that attract all the locals and even visitors to the city. Especially on a beautiful summer day, Broadripple is always filled with adventurous people looking to explore the area or revisit their favorite spots. When I recently spent an afternoon in Broadripple, it was filled with people playing Pokémon Go. Practically every person around me had their eyes glued down looking at their phones, frantically searching for the next Pokémon character. I even saw people driving around, neither hand on the steering wheel, glued to their phones. What a terrifying sight to see. It was sort of unbelievable at first. I thought, are all of these people really this invested in a game? They were truly missing out on not only the beautiful day, but the interesting places and people around them. All they cared about was the game.
One of my greatest pet peeves is when I'm out enjoying a meal with someone, they resort to checking their phone too much. I'm guilty of this too, and try my best to break the habit of always reaching for my phone if conversation lulls or I'm left alone at the table. What's even more disappointing is looking around at everyone else enjoying meals together, but ruining it by sitting on their phones. Now people are doing this when they are just out walking around, ignoring everything going on around them because of a video game.
One of the most important questions that is ignored and forgotten about is, "What am I missing out on?" What are you missing out on when you go to a park to look for Pokémon instead of enjoying the nature and scenery around you? What are you missing out on when you choose to play a video game rather than spending quality time talking and engaging with friends and family? Technology is both a blessing and a curse, but with this latest invention I think the cons outweigh the pros when it comes down to what we're really missing.
