More than the feeling of fulfillment when catching monsters and the fun brought by "Pokemon Go" to people is an underlying issue that needs to be noticed. Well, how will we know the issue if we're under the "Pokemon Go" spell?
A recent study by Jama Network showed that the game is far more hazardous than we think. Not only careless players put themselves in harm but other people as well. People are staring at their smartphones while walking, there's nothing new with that. But with "Pokemon Go," players are now more focused on their smartphones and they are slower, Forbes reported.
Is this the "Pokemon Go" spell? Somehow, people are like "hypnotized" by the game and they just stare at their phones while walking, not noticing where they're going or if they're going to bump into a person, or worse to a car. There have been accidents which pointed to distracted driving, while there are cases leading to distracted pedestrians being hit by cars.
"Pokemon Go" is an augmented reality game created by software developer Niantic. The game has since been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times. The game is highly addictive, as you can see almost everyone with their phones and their heads bowed down.
Researchers used 4,000 random Twitter posts from July 10 to 19 to analyze how dangerous and hazardous "Pokemon Go" game is for players and non-players alike. There were 113,993 episodes of Twitter reports in 10 days. Thirty-three percent of the samples taken "indicated that a driver, passenger, or pedestrian was distracted by Pokémon Go."
A sample tweet from a passenger: "Spent the drive back with my bros phone in one hand and my phone in the other, him yelling for me to catch Pokemon for him." A driver's tweet: "omg I'm catching Pokemon and driving." And a tweet from a pedestrian: "Almost got hit by a car playing Pokemon GO."
In fact, a fatal accident in Japan was caused by "Pokemon Go." CNBC reported that a 72-year-old woman and a companion was hit by a van driven by someone playing "Pokemon Go." This was the second fatal accident caused by the game in Japan.
Eighteen percent of the tweets taken showed that "a person is playing "Pokemon Go" and driving," 11 percent "showed a "passenger is playing," and four percent meant that "a passenger was distracted." The research also said that there 14 crashes.
