Pokemon Go Rethink: Mental Health [Part 2]

Source: http://bit.ly/2aGcfk0

Last time, I only emphasize on physical health which I concluded that it was not really a fitness app after all then how about the mental health?

The Good:

As I mentioned in the previous post, this apps was so powerful to convince otaku to leave their computer and their room to explore their neighbourhood. In fact, it is very good to stay away from social media.

In social media, every issue can be very sensitive and emotional especially some experts found out that social media users like Facebook or even Google users fell into victims as Facebook or Google's lab rat. According to Alltime10s, Facebook had done plenty social experiment to manipulate users' emotion. For example, they purposely make all the negative news on your top feeds or the positives news then they check your reactions. Or maybe the reactions features are a marketing analytical tool to help corporate to check the marketing value of their product. If let said, you fell into the victim as negative news on your top feeds, how are you going to have a good day?

For Google, it is believed to be used as political tool. According to SourceFed, they suspect Google is biased to Hillary Clinton. It is harder to find Hillary Clinton's scandal if you used Google to search it because non-American don't really understand why did Trump has so many supporters. My point is Google also has the capability to manipulate our mind. In my own opinion, it is very unhealthy to stay in the social media for too long.

When a human brain expose too much of frustration and sadness from the social media, that is very unhealthy for the brain. In long term, that person might be ended up with depression. Famous actor like Robin William got killed by depression although he had brought us joy and fun during his lifetime.

Now Pokemon Go encourages us to leave our computer away and leave our room to hunt Pokemon around our neighbour or travel across other neighbourhood. On the other hand, this is an augmented reality game, it required physical workout to play the game. In the past, we only played Gameboy to hunt Pokemon which is pure virtual reality but now it is augmented reality that allowed players to experience how was it to be a Pokemon Trainer to catch them all within the neighbourhood. Due to this nostalgic effect, our brain will emit good hormone that make us happy and keep our brain healthy.

This is like a battle between Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. Obsession toward augmented reality is better than virtual reality in my opinion. When you spent more time to explore the neighbourhood, you started to realize some weird building or landmarks were marked by the Poke Stop. For example, there was an Obama statue in my neighbourhood, I only knew it when I played Pokemon Go. Apparently, it makes me feel like my place is a very interesting place. I started to know my neighbourhood better.

Most of the time, players used PokeVision to locate Pokemon then they will gather at a specific spot to hunt the rare Pokemon. As a results, it is very crowded when you go to hot spot like a public park, playground and promenade. In those hot spots, it is amazing to observe the community while hunting. Either you would see a group of happy family hunted Pokemon together, a group of lovely couples, a group of friends and many otaku who hunted alone XD.

The fun part is everyone rush to a spot when someone detected a rare Pokemon there. This game somehow encourage a social interaction that is beneficial to the mental health as compared to connection through Facebook.

Hence, it is healthier to obsessed with augmented reality to learn the reality that we used to live in instead of the virtual reality where the reality there seem to be perfect or social media where our mind was manipulated silently. I am fully agree that it really help to fight depression which is the major first world problem.

The Bad:

Here is a grey area about obsession. If you are obsessed for something good, we called it, determination but it is addiction when it is something bad just like drug. Apparently, this augmented reality apps did play around our emotion too. For example, you were run out of Pokeball when there was a rare Pokemon, your bag was full such that you were unable to get free PokeStop, lost GPS and Data connection, out of battery and the worst part, spending half of your Pokeballs and you still didn't catch the Pokemon then it fled.

Either it makes people to be obsessed to catch them all or level up quickly to be a Pokemon Master in the gym. As you level up, it is harder to get Pokeballs and it took a lot of Pokeballs to catch a rare Pokemon or Pokemon with CP200 above.

With this obsession, productivity might be dropped significantly. For example, some players would install Pokedetector to notify them a Pokemon was nearby. Imagine you were working, and the Pokedetector notifies you that there was a rare Pokemon within a 5-10m, are you tempted to go there and catch it? If you are professional, you should be able to withstand this temptation but how many were able to resist it?

As mentioned in my previous post, I spent 5km/day to hunt Pokemon. 5km consumed me around 2 hrs. Before it was released in Hong Kong, I bought about 5-10 book from Book Fair to expand my horizon but it is sabotaged now if I couldn't control myself to limit my time on Pokemon Go. Therefore, my self development's productivity was dropped.

In my opinion, it is not suitable a guy like me who has a lot of plan to execute lol.

Another thing about obsession is we are always blinded by it. As recalled in Batman:The Animated Series, the Episode, "I am the Night", Batman said, "a fanatic is someone who redoubles his efforts while losing sight of his goal."

As you know, people are very obsessed to achieve their goal without considering the potential danger during the journey. For example, looking at the device while crossing the road is very dangerous. It was red light for the pedestrians but they insisted to cross the road without bothering any vehicle were approaching. Another case, like they found a rare Pokemon at a spot then everyone ran over there without considering the people around so there were quite a number of body collision. Or maybe it was a running track or cycling track, but Pokemon Go players were standing there to sabotage the active runner and cyclists.

Recently happened in Hong Kong, the local police was concerned whether do they need to send police to do crowd control on any hot spot where players play Pokemon Go.

In fact, this phenomena can be seen as an illness. An illness that endangers the players.

Conclusion:

It is a good apps to fight depression and make us more connected to our community but obsession without consideration may drop the productivity and endanger the players themselves.

Advice:

Please be considerate whenever you play Pokemon Go.
Don't need to rush when you still have plenty of time to catch it unless it would be banned in the future.
Always stay alert to the surrounding.
Lastly, please don't litter the neighbourhood.