On Mother's Day about eight years ago, I made my family try geocaching. My hope was that, in hunting for those GPS-connected hidden treasures, we'd all get outside and enjoy the fresh air a bit more. But my plan failed miserably. After spending $14.99 on a geocaching app, we couldn't find the caches and, as the day wore on, everyone got increasingly frustrated and cranky.
But from the moment my teenage daughter downloaded a new app last Friday night, something changed. I've logged more steps than ever before — nearly 15,000 each day (typically, I log about 10,000), and my daughter has ventured out of the house and into the world with a newfound enthusiasm. It may have taken almost a decade, but things are finally going my way, thanks in part to a new game that's taken over the internet: Pokémon GO. Maybe you've heard of it?
Pokémon GO uses your smartphone's GPS to turn your neighborhood into a virtual Pokémon world, allowing you to find, capture, and train these adorable pocket monsters in your backyard, a nearby park, and anywhere else people congregate. Despite tales of Pokémon hunters stumbling upon dead bodies, getting into car accidents, or being lured into desolate areas to be robbed, there's a case to be made for the surprising physical and social benefits of this app. If geocaching created "hiking with a purpose" then Pokémon GO has created a new reason for reluctant exercisers to go outside and explore.
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Less than five hours after it went live in the United States on July 6, Pokémon GO became the number one downloaded app. By the next day, it was installed on more U.S. Android phones than the popular dating app, Tinder.
And suddenly my teenager, who never wants to run errands with me and always refuses to go for walks, is eager to get out of the house. Why? To catch Pokémon.
So far this week, we've made plans to go for a walk every night after dinner, and my daughter has been volunteering to go to the grocery store with me every chance she gets. Apparently, Pokémon like to hang out in the store's aisles. A fun activity is "posing" for photos with Pokémon. Sure, you'll look utterly ridiculous crouched down next to the soup cans, but the photos are adorable. My daughter took a photo of me holding a Rattata in the park. Luckily, none of our neighbors witnessed me posing with an invisible rodent.
Let me be clear: It's not that my daughter never left the house before Pokémon GO came into our lives. She plays lacrosse in the spring, sails in the summer, and is in marching band in the fall. But when she's not involved in an organized outdoor activity, she prefers to stay inside and watch YouTube, play video games, or text friends.
She's also an avid Pokémon card player and participates in a league every Saturday morning at a local comic book store. This past Saturday, several league members, including my daughter, chose to walk to a nearby park to capture Pokémon instead of spending two hours indoors.
Perhaps it's not surprising that Pokémon GO creates incentives for movement. Although the app was developed by Niantic Labs, video game creator Nintendo is an investor in Niantic and The Pokémon Company, and the creator of Wii Fit, a video game that was popular in 2007 and encouraged families to exercise together.
A friend of mine, Patrick Scott, associate director of middle school admission at Maret School in Washington, D.C., is experiencing this phenomenon with his stepson, who is a big-time gamer. They spent Saturday morning walking a mile through a nearby historic cemetery — something they hadn't done in years. The cemetery was full of Pokéstops, places where you can collect free Pokéballs and other items that help you capture Pokémon. Pokéstops tend to be historical landmarks, such as statues, city landmarks, museums, parks, churches, shopping centers, college campuses and other tourist locations, which is great for learning about your surroundings.
"The game gave us a nice way to break up our weekend routine," Patrick told me. "We engaged with everything we found and read all of the historic markers." In fact, he and his stepson discovered a Civil War remembrance obelisk a few blocks from their home. "I had no idea it was there until I saw it marked as a Pokéstop," he said.
Some users say Pokémon GO is doing good things for their mental health, too:
Last night, I found my daughter pacing around the living room with her iPhone in hand, trying to hatch an egg she found at a Pokéstop. The farther you walk, she told me, the more rare the Pokémon you'll find inside the egg. And the healthier you'll be, I thought, but I kept that part to myself.
