[radicaledward]

I'm not the parent, but the new Pokemon game has been amazing for me. I'm 28 and single though. So obviously the target market. I've done more walking since the game came out than I had done in years. I've seen a lot of nature too. I found an owl in the park near my house. It was so close I could almost reach out and touch it.

In the context of the article, Kaphan is talking about technologies that isolate versus technologies that connect people. For the examples he gives:

1 seems to be neutral to me (people talking robotically to voice recognition systems). This is neither isolating nor connecting. It is just a different means of interfacing with a computer. I'm sure someone somewhere made a similar argument when the typewriter was invented.

1 seems isolating. Looking at your phone instead of being mentally present at your current location can be isolating. But then it depends on what you are doing. If you are participating in a text message communication, that's connecting you to someone else while isolating you from the physical world.

But Pokemon seems like it falls in the "connecting" category. I have something new in common with random strangers that we can discuss. I go out with my friends to play the game. The downside for some people seems to be that I am now physically present connecting with them and they would really rather I didn't. They liked the park empty and quiet.

Of course there are the incidents of people playing while driving or the one guy who walked off a cliff that one time (99% of the articles I've read slamming Pokemon Go mention the same 3 Reddit posts without attribution). But for me personally, I'm more present and walking around when I play Pokemon than I am when I'm posting on HN.