Gotta Catch 'Em All: How Society Hates a Kid's Game (Part 2) - Counter-Culture Reaction

Control by Pawel Kuczynski, 2016.

"Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."

Or so the adage of Murphy's Law goes. It prophecies the issue of Unintended consequence, a dilemma of social science which suggests that unsure actions have unintended consequences.

Could this be true with the launch of Pokemon Go on July 8? 

What then was the intended goal of the app?

Let us examine a few lines from PoGo's corporate developer (Niantic, Inc.) in an official statement released on July 6:

"..to change the way people interact with the world around them by creating the world’s first 'real world gaming' platform..."

"..building a unique massively scalable server and global location dataset..."

"..have fun, socialize, and get more fit as they play and explore..."

Admittedly, I'm not aware of the game's operating capacity (fascinating as I'm sure it is), but what seems to be most controversial is the effect its users have made on that "real world." Here are three dilemmas I've read online (or seen personally) that people find problematic:

(fig. 1) Apparently Eastwood is their champion.

1. Trespassing

People are concerned about property rights. As was PoGo's mission, discovery via global positioning suggests that users explore. What seems to be the problem is a user's sense of judgment and decision-making. How many users ask themselves, "Where would I not go?"

Despite what your insurance company
will tell you.

2. Safety

People have died using the app. Few have sympathy for the stupid, especially one oblivious teenager who blamed the app for her lack of attention.** Meanwhile another group of Brit teens believed a rickety, old pier must've harbored some hard-to-find Charizards, only to be marooned there hours later. But the overall concern seems to drawn upon the mindlessness of petextrians (present even before PoGo). Will natural selection simply take care of this problem? Tune-in to this year's Darwin Awards...

3. Technophobia

The fear or dislike of technology as it becomes more complex and continues to evolve. Theorist Christian Lous Lange once surmised, "Technology is a useful servant, but a dangerous master." Again, the question is, when do we determine self-restraint and turn off?

Most of my thoughts here are rhetorical. We know that these have been recent concerns. But are we responding/recorrecting them in a civil manner? Not from the comments I've read online (see fig. 1).

So what might be a better approach? Having studied anthropological field techniques in college, this interaction is called, "developing a rapport." It means approaching a group of people (somehow different from yourself) in a compassionate, caring way in order to build a relationship of trust and mutual understanding.

An example of one agency that did this well is our National Parks:

Dir. Jon Jarvis sincerely addresses the increase of visitation to national parks because of PoGo,
though its obvious he knows nothing about Pokemon.

Furthermore, I agree that boundaries on what we consider "acceptable" need to be enforced or at the very least clarified. From the Holocaust Museum ("Please Stop Catching Pokemon Here") to Bosnian mine fields, this evidently has become problematic. But honestly, when is it ever not?

Gettysburg NMP has always reminded visitors
to be respectful, Pokemon Go users or not.

STORYTIME: After visiting a local cemetery and informed its keepers of why more visitors were trolling the grounds (myself included). They replied that they welcomed visitors but ask they be mindful of their surroundings. Later, I noticed two sisters and a young daughter grieving the lost of a woman killed in a traffic accident the week prior.

Mind your surroundings. Know your boundaries.

From what I've seen, users appear to be harmlessly stopping.. then walking. Nothing too extreme. Perhaps better posture is in the works?

The Catholics know.

The last part of this review will relate the thrilling discoveries I've made using the PoGo app. So keep reading!

**PoGo has now updated their start-up screen to warn users.

Gotta Catch 'Em All: How Society Hates a Kid's Game (Part 1) - Logical Fallacy in Online Memes

This past week, I, alongside thousands of others embarked in the same great quest the show was premised on following the U.S. release of the Pokemon Go app. The location-based, augmented reality game lets users find the same coveted critters we grew up with. (I must confess, the novelty of “catching” is quite relentless!)

 

Yet, shortly after, dissent started to brood on Internet-land… How could a kids-based game actually become so despised? Seriously. Well, because people love to attach personal agendas/meanings to anything.

In a college Public Speaking course, I was introduced to commonly misused association patterns, called logical fallacy. This concept is define as "a pattern of reasoning rendered invalid by a flaw in logical structure."

First, let’s take a look at one of the most common types of logical fallacies: False analogy. This compares two things that aren’t similar enough to compare:

A judgment of "manliness"?

Hunting v. hunting?

Public safety v. Marijuana debate
(Stoners are loving that one)

The second is called Placing Blame Elsewhere, which avoids the issues by attacking something else. This sometimes overlaps another fallacy called Ad hominem: an attack against an opponent’s character instead of against an argument. 

Both seem to commonly to used in reference to Generational differences. In fact, a coworker told me about juvenoia, a newly-coined phrase (juvenile + paranoia) by David Finkelhor in 2010. It's defined as “fear or hostility directed by an older generation toward a younger one, or toward youth culture in general.” 

Unsurprisingly, the PoGo phenomenon has fired-up traditional concerns over adolescent’s priorities (e.g. Jobs, Physical Activity). Here are a couple:

Of course, these issues are more complex than what a meme depicts. Instead of making hasty generalizations (another fallacy), we need to use logic & reason to understand the broader picture.