Up North Progressive

Connor Arbiter (@ConnorArbiter) says:

So by this logic, a few murders have happened in Traverse City, so, by default, the writer of this article is a murderer for living here. Here, I’ll make my slanderous headline: “Up North Progressive Writer: Murderer at Large?”
If this headline unjustly damages your reputation, don’t worry, I just really needed those clicks on my crappy news site. It’s worth it.

Dear “Up North Progressive” – Just stop. Your reporting here is uninformed and naive and relies on negativity to fuel any interest in it.

Nothing in the game requires you to disrespect your surroundings and throw produce at other people. The problem here was the people, not the game they happened to be playing. Stop trying to make everyone over 35 hate everyone for playing a game that is harmless for anyone with common sense to play. It’s literally just walking around. If people get hurt or hurt others or produce it’s because they’re bad people, the game has nothing to do with that.

Your skewed, fear-mongering reporting is why we can’t have nice things: you’re convincing clueless adults who don’t know any better that “throwing produce” and “stealing it” are apparently part of playing Pokémon Go?

Learn how to exist properly, oh, and quit causing all of the murders in Traverse City by living in the same town they happened in.

ButMadNNW says:

The headline should read, “Vandals Put a Stop to Traverse City U-pick Raspberry Farm,” because the game is not at fault here. The players’ (if they *were* playing) behavior is at fault. There is nothing about the game that requires or encourages trampling or throwing crops and anyone who would behave in such a disrespectful manner on others’ property would do so with or without a game to blame. Same as with any injuries that have happened – those were caused by people exercising poor judgment, not by the game, which has a loading screen reminding players to stay safe and aware of their surroundings. You see it every time you boot up the app.

There is no reason to have one’s eyes glued to the game screen to the point of falling off cliffs. If the phone is put in a pocket with the game running, the phone will vibrate when a Pokémon is nearby. At which point the player can stop walking (at a safe point out of the way of others), take out their phone, and attempt the capture. Likewise, there’s no reason to have the game running while driving, both for obvious safety reasons and because the game stops tracking distance when you go above a certain speed because you’re supposed to *walk* to achieve certain goals and the design short-circuits most forms of cheating that aim.

First it was “video games cause violence”, which scientific research has disproved. Then it was mobile phones, texting, Facebook, and so on. Pokémon Go is just the latest scapegoat in the “technology is evil and dangerous” narrative, when the trouble isn’t the technology, it’s the way *people* behave when using the technology.

I seem to be seeing far more negative stories and attitudes about the game online than I do positive. I know the media loves to inflate the negatives in life, but let’s talk about how playing Pokémon Go is encouraging people to explore their communities and discover landmarks and art installations they used to walk past every day without noticing (I never realized that canoe on a post by the Boardman near Front Street was supposed to be an artistic rendition of a person until it was tagged a PokéStop – the game provides identifying information about the places that are PokéStops). Or how people are getting out, walking in parks, meeting each other in real life, and talking face-to-face. Since I work from home, I’ve met more new people in the past week than I have in the entire year I’ve lived around Traverse City.

People who suffer from depression, anxiety, and social anxiety are getting out of the house, getting the exercise we mental health professionals have always encouraged them to get (because research shows exercise is as effective as antidepressant medication, if not more so), feeling better, and interacting with others over a shared interest. Let’s mention that player communities are encouraging each other to do things like take a trash bag on their gaming walks to clean up litter. How about the fact that kids are asking their parents to take them out on walks instead of sitting in their rooms and parents and kids are playing the game together and bonding? Or that some local businesses are providing water to players so they don’t wilt in the heat we’ve had and offering special deals to take advantage of the increased foot traffic. And then there’s the animal shelter in Indiana that encouraged players to come walk their dogs so the dogs got exercise, socialization, and some of them, new homes.

Every group is going to have its bad eggs, especially when we’re talking about an app that’s been downloaded onto MILLIONS of devices. Let’s stop giving the bad ones press and focus on the majority of positive players instead. 🙂

(As an aside, lest anyone think an “unemployed idiot millennial” wrote this [another negative attitude I’ve seen online about the game]: I’m 37, hold a Master’s degree, telecommute for a psychology company, and play Pokémon Go.)