Pokemon GO: Beer, Coffee & Dog Editions

I can't decide if Pokemon GO is the most brilliant thing ever or the work of Satan.

I was listening to NPR the other day as I was picking my son up from music camp. The Boy calls it "band camp." His friend who plays the cello calls it "music camp." Music camp sounds like they are playing Beethoven. Band camp sounds like a bunch of young boys blasting away rock music on their horns. This camp is closer to Beethoven, but not by much. For some reason, the Boy loves this camp. I can't figure out why.

I digress, but not really. I'd much rather have my kid playing music three hours every day instead of looking for Pokemon on his phone. And I already give him a fairly long leash when it comes to going around town. This week, I let the Boy ride his bike from the U District to Ballard to visit Card Kingdom to buy Magic Cards.* Round trip it is thirteen miles. I encourage (okay beg) my son to bike to soccer practice at Magnuson Park so I don't have to drive him. Win-win, I say. Good for the environment, and I get forty minutes of my life back. My high school history teacher said sleeping and driving places were the two biggest wastes of time ever. I disagree with him on sleeping, but agree with him on driving. In short, I hate it; therefore, I am happy to let my kids take the bus or bike around town. Seattle Public Schools gives high school and middle school kids who live a certain distance from school an Orca card for travel. I asked someone in transportation once if kids use the cards to go all over town.

"No," he said. "Almost all of the trip are to and from school." Wow. Kids who are given a free pass don't use it.

Until now. Jack and I regularly walk our dog through Ravenna Park. This past week, we have seen groups of people looking for Pokemon, people we have never seen in the park before. In one sense, I am glad these people are getting their dose of Vitamin N,* but seriously, can't they do it without looking at a screen? Are they really communing with the trees and ferns, dipping their toes in the creek? No. They are developing near-sightedness by looking at their phone. People have crashed their cars and walked off cliffs looking for Pokemon. Little kids have left their homes in the middle of the night and were found miles away from home looking for digital creatures.

The upside: When the Boy and I were at the Sounders game last week, I overheard two moms talking. Her daughter rarely left the house until she got Pokemon GO. Her kids met kids who live in their neighborhood who they have never met before. There is a quantifiable uptick in exercise for children in the in the past few weeks. They boys on my son's soccer team joke that Michelle Obama has been trying to get kids to exercise for seven and a half years, and Pokemon GO succeeded in less than a month. My dad saw young people forty to fifty pounds overweight outside walking around Antrim Lake. Jack and I saw a family with three generations walking through the Ravenna woods tonight.

Why did we need an app to get us outside?

Back to NPR. I heard that Pokemon GO was developed by the Google Maps people. They wanted to create a game using Google Maps. There were other games like this before, but Pokemon GO was the one that clicked with people.

Maybe I would understand this better if I understood Pokemon, but could we think of something else? What about micro-brewries? Every time you go to a local micro-brewery, you get a gold star. Maybe you get one for each beer you drink. It could be a pub crawl game.

"Wouldn't you get really drunk?" the Boy asked when I presented this idea at dinner tonight.

"You wouldn't have to drink everything all in one night," I said. "Maybe over the summer or something."

You could do it for independently owned coffee shops. Heck, you could even collect dog breeds. Give each dog a tag or scan their picture. See how many dogs you can find while walking around. I'd might feel sorry for the poor owner of a saluki who might get harassed because their saluki is the only one around for ten miles, but other than that, it could be fine. Dog owners usually smile and say hi to people anyway. Or there could be a combo game: which dogs did you see in coffee shops?

You are welcome, internet, if someone hasn't already created this idea.

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* I wanted him to load the the "Find My Friend" app on his phone so I could see where he was in case something happened. "I won't get kidnapped," he said.
"But what if you get hit by a car?" I said.
"That would be bad if you looked at your phone and saw I was at Harborview Hospital," he said.

** Vitamin N = Nature according to Richard Louv.