Train of thoughts: Pokemon Go

Hi loves,

Today I am introducing a new article series, a series where I just randomly blur out my train of thoughts, about something that keeps me thinking (maybe even keeps me awake at night), something trendy, viral, it could be basically everything. From Pokémon GO today, to a fiction piece about something I see around me. I felt like I needed a place, to sometimes just write about, basically whatever! So here it is, my train of thoughts.

Read on for my train of thoughts on Pokémon GO, from the upsides to the downsides of this super trendy augmented reality game!

Baci,
Saranda

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Pokémon GO

Do you remember your childhood? I do, and I think most of you will 😉 During my last years of elementary school there was this huge hype. It all started with a cartoon animé series from Japan, where a boy called Ash needs to find cute or fierce monsters all around his region called Pokémon. The series became popular in the Netherlands pretty fast, and soon I was playing the Pokémon card game on the schoolyard!

I was pretty much hooked and when my little brother got his first GameBoy we started playing Pokémon games on his GameBoy! Years passed and I kept playing Pokémon for a pretty long time. I guess I stopped playing just a couple of years ago to be honest.

So when Pokémon GO was released and my boyfriend started playing it I got hooked, again! Catching Pokémon in real life through Augmented Reality, that’s just AMAZEBALLS! 😀

Pretty quickly people started making issues about people playing Pokémon GO, totally justiciable issues by the way, about players not paying attention in traffic, walking on the side of traintracks to catch Pokémon or trespassing on private properties. But let’s just take a look at both the Pro’s and Cons.

Pokémon GO the Pro’s

First off and the biggest pro if you ask me, is that this app gets you outdoors! It gets you active and it lets you breath in the fresh air. To hatch eggs you have to walk a lot of miles which is really good for physical health! And well, fresh air never heard nobody…

The game also let’s you discover nice information about your neighbourhood and your city. Every Pokéstop is a monument, statue, fountain, wall-art or something in that range. You see new things and even buildings can, apparently, be very interesting when a row of flats are divided into constellations 😉

Furthermore, when going outside you actually meet a lot of new people who also play the game. Especially if you are hunting a specific rare Pokémon. It felt a bit weird at first, but it’s so much fun to see people from 8 tot 68 play this game! Meeting new people is such a big Pro for this game! People with social anxiety get out more and people who are in need of social contact can find it in an easy way. I just love that about this game!

Last but not least I think this game is really good for developing or re-finding your creativity! Especially for the older kids, for whom this game is just the best throwback ever. Pokémon GO can bring back the childhood imagination you used to have! I can already tell you, it got me to think about new articles (such as this one) and more!

Pokémon GO the Cons

Now for the cons, I don’t think there are a lot of cons, but there are some that are definitely note-worthy. Here we go…

Clearly one of the cons can be that people do not pay attention. Here in the Netherlands there is a story known of a buss driver that actually played the game while working and he now is out of a job. Not so clever. The designer of the game, Niantic, now has an inbuilt warning system for when you are going to fast, where you have to confirm you are not driving. However it’s pretty easy to just say you are not driving yourself. But hey this warning is better than nothing! There are also warnings about trespassing so that is covered as well.

Another downside is that some people might get too attached to their phones, but aren’t we already busy with our phones too much, all of us?! We all should take some electricity downtime sometimes, an offline moment for ourselves, don’t you all think?

I would love to hear your opinion on Pokémon GO. Did you join the hype? Do you think the hype is real? Or are you on the opposite side of the Poké-table? Let me hear your train of thoughts by leaving me a comment.