Pokémon GO Isn’t Destroying Society, It’s Making It Better

 

I don’t like people. I don’t like going out, saying hello to neighbors, or gathering in groups. Everything about social interaction stresses me out, but I’ve been tolerating it, even seeking it out, because of the craze that is Pokémon GO.
Pokémon GO is an unprecedented phenomenon. We see this economically and digitally — Nintendo is $8 billion more valuable than it was last week and the app is used more than Tinder and Twitter — but look around; we see this socially. Catch anyone swiping quickly upwards on their smartphones and there’s a great chance they are throwing a poké ball at some elusive Rapidash (more likely Pidgey). Go to a park or walk down the main drag of a city and you will see dozens of people playing Pokémon GO together.
The knee-jerk reaction to this, to all media-based crazes since there was media, is to say the game is destroying society. Yes, kids are on their phones now more than ever, yes, people are inappropriately playing in sacred locations like holocaust museums and graveyards, yes, people have been robbed while looking for lures, or have found dead bodies. Such Poké Alarmism rings of previous social panics over pornography, or cell phones, or banned books. If you focus on the negative and buy into the bias that fueled those panics, yes, it does look like Pokémon GO is making society worse.
Look up from the tall grass and see all the ways that Pokémon GO is making society better.
If your first phone was a smart phone, you’ve never lived in a world without the Pokémon franchise. Everyone who is actively using a smartphone today is in Nintendo’s target demographic. That, plus the meme-ability of the game, its simplicity, familiarity, and nostalgic appeal have contributed to the app’s tremendous uptake. It seems like everyone playing it because everyone is. Imagine if everyone who used Twitter gestured in public such that you could tell they were tweeting. You’d notice dozens of people on your way to work, in the park, pretty much everywhere. Pokémon GO has reportedly surpassed Twitter’s number of daily users.
What Pokémon GO has on other apps is that it encourages and requires people to come and work together. Sometimes this means an interaction that scares us. The idea of being literally lured into a mugging or worse is terrifying. I like to remember Mister Rogers when our bias to focus on the negative takes over: “Look for the helpers.” Set aside the scary stories for a moment and look at what Pokémon GO is doing for people.