Kristina Iliopoulos: ‘Pokemon Go’ brings camaraderie, adventure to campus

Last week on a Wednesday Eevee-ning, I was in my life sciences lab dissecting a rat. I pretended to be sick from the sight of some still-beating hearts and the odor that comes from a rat that freshly died for science and I left the room to grab water. Passing by the fountain, I walked swiftly across campus to Powell, where a cluster of Bruins had already gathered around a Dragonite, way higher than any level I was capable of catching. I spent a good half hour failing to catch that Dragonite, and then ran around campus searching for Pokemon instead of participating in my lab’s fruitful dissection. And that was the moment I realized “Pokemon Go” was quickly taking over not only my life, but everyone in my community’s as well.

“Pokemon Go” is the first Pokemon game to be exclusively on the mobile app store and the first to use augmented reality. As long as players keep their location services turned on – sucking up all their data – they are able to walk around to different locations and catch Pokemon. The app quickly rose above other popular apps like Tinder and Twitter, and attracted many Mew – ahem, new – users. Anyone with a smartphone can download it, while previous Pokemon games required a console and the separate purchase of the game.

Conversation surrounding the game has focused on how gamers disregard their surroundings and end up in places they usually would not, and become a hazard for those around them. Although somewhat true, much of this criticism is overblown. “Pokemon Go” overall will have a positive impact on the UCLA community in terms of promoting mental health and helping strangers meet each other.

That said, the criticisms aren’t unfounded. Bruin Walk is already usually cluttered with students glued to their phones instead of paying attention to their surroundings, and now there’s students running a-Muk around campus looking for Pokemon to catch and teams to battle. During the school year, this could become a great recipe for injuries.

Numerous outlets report users injuring themselves while playing and not paying attention to their surroundings. However, most of these outlets and the users injured imply the game is to blame for the injuries, not the users who disregard their surroundings.

If we Diglett into the hard truth, if someone was stabbed in a questionable area in the middle of the night, it’s not because they were playing “Pokemon Go,” it’s because they were in a questionable area in the middle of the night. This game is not to blame for the prevalent lack of common sense in society; it merely serves to expose it. Hopefully, at a campus like UCLA, the general population will exhibit a bit more precaution and self-awareness.

But it hasn’t been all bad. One of Pokemon Go’s main selling points was getting users who would otherwise be at home, glued to some screen, possibly feeling Gloom-y, to go outside. It resulted in users indeed being outside, glued to their phone screens.

An Onix-pected result was the instant camaraderie it built in communities. “Pokemon Go” came at the perfect time. Game of Thrones ended its season and college students needed something new to talk about. Being on the same team instantly unifies those who would otherwise probably never know each other and users trying to catch the same Pokemon are actually in the same vicinity of one another, and it’s not too Farfetch’d to say they might actually have a conversation. In a world we must defend from rising mental health issues and not enough free CAPS appointments, this could not have come at a better time.

This game has also revived the same child-like sense of wonder that many experienced while watching the television show or playing the games when they were kids. Many students have taken their teams seriously to control gyms, locations where one team at a time maintains control over until another team can defeat it. The closest gym to UCLA off campus is right outside Mattel Children’s Hospital, and on campus is the John Wooden statue and Powell library. Christopher Flood, rising third-year business economics student said when he started he wanted to be the best, like no one ever was, but knew there was a long road ahead. He added, “I don’t want to Jynx it, but right now I’m dominating the children’s hospital, so at the end of the day Wynaut give Pokemon a try?”

“Pokemon Go” provides a great excuse to leave the house and opens doors for all types of social possibilities. All the great Pokemon adventures from our childhood Arbok – I mean, are back – in the best way possible.