The new sensational app, Pokemon Go, has redefined our communities as strangers join forces to track down and capture imaginary monsters! Did Pokemon just solve the gap between the lack of activity associated with digital devices in new generations with the adventurous ways of the old? We think it might have.
There’s no denying Pokemon Go, by Niantic, has become an overnight sensation. In just a few days, it has added over 9 billion dollars of value to the Nintendo name and nearly surpassed Twitter in daily active users. But what’s most shocking is the behavior in our communities. Every where you go, you see kids, teens, and even adults chasing fictional Pokemon through the streets with their phones. There’s clusters of Pokemon Go players huddled together in every corner of every major city. Complete strangers are rallying together to battle each other with fictional monsters to defend imaginary markers on real locations. Some see this as a nuisance while others believe it may be helping socially challenged individuals join the community. Whole towns that used to lack their thriving commonplace are now filled with lively groups of youth excitedly playing Pokemon Go. Churches are seeing higher attendance numbers due to the locations of the battlegrounds within the game. And although there has been accounts of players going into areas where they don’t belong, most players have traveled to community parks and common areas giving us a nostalgic feeling of the good old days when people actually talked to each other over coffee.
Pokemon is quickly becoming the reason we visit a city, hang out with friends, or just go on a walk. A large number of fan based communities to pop up on the web. Many Facebook groups & events have sprouted up with thousands of members & attendees. Hopefully this isn’t a bubble and it continues to encourage it’s users to explore.
As crazy as it seems to need an app to get people to go out and interact with a world, we can’t help but see the positive in thinking that this could be a good thing for us.
The world has been under an unprecedented amount of stress and hateful division of our communities has been a rising issue. Who knows, maybe Pokemon Go is the answer we’re looking for to overcome these recent challenges and bring people together? It may not, but it doesn’t hurt to hope!
