"Pokemon GO" is on the news again, but not on the good side. Players becomes too occupied with the game that they forget where they are or what they're doing.
A middle school teacher in Pinellas County, FL, injured two pedestrians while playing "Pokemon GO." According to a report by WSTP 10 News, 38 year old Vincent Barone, a middle school teacher at Plato academy in Largo accidentally struck "two pedestrians Sheree Dean, 37 and Sherman Puckett, 29 , on the sidewalk near the intersection of State Road 580 and County Road 1 around 2:20 Sunday afternoon." Barone fled the scene and was arrested and charged with two counts of "leaving the scene of a crash with serious injuries" after a witness followed his Honda civic, called 911 until the authorities arrived. Barone states that he was distracted by the game "Pokemon GO." Vincent Barone is also suspended from the Plato Academy and will not be allowed to drive for the time being.
"Pokemon Go" was launched on July 6, 2016 with 30 million users based on Statista's records. A study was even conducted by Dr. John Ayers who's based at San Diego University, California, came up with a staggering 110,000 accidents in a 10-day rolling period caused by playing "Pokemon GO." The study was based on a random sample of 4000 messages on Twitter, and news reports in period of 10 days. The end result of the study is quite alarming and players should be more responsible when playing the game.
"Pokemon GO" is supposed to promote good health and wellbeing for players by going outside and exploring the open world. Players who are carelessly driving and playing are creating a bad impression to the game. These type of accidents clearly diverts the real meaning and purpose of the game. Accidents happen all the time but as the famous saying goes, "the end does not justify the means."
