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player ready...After spending the last leg of a two-week vacation in an architecturally significant but Wi-Fi/internet-lacking lake house, we knew we missed the start of something big as soon as we hit “civilization” and picked up a cell phone signal.
In a crowded car on a long ride home, my oldest daughter was especially quiet. When I questioned what she was up to, she replied, “Playing ‘Pokemon Go’.”
The rest of the car’s inhabitants shot up, puzzled. Even back in the day, when my kids were younger and Pokemon was more popular, none of them spent much leisure time on Pokemon activities.
Reading a Twitter post she felt compelled to shout out from her third-row seat, surely to emphasize the difficult conditions she was enduring in our journey back to Naperville, she said, “In 24 hours ‘Pokemon Go’ has done something that First Lady Michelle Obama has been trying to do for the last eight years — get kids moving.”
And that it has. In less than a week, millions are playing the game here in Naperville and around the country.
Even from a moving vehicle driving along a busy highway, she was able to secure Pikachu from a car near the intersection of interstates 57 and 80, hooking her into the craze.
Over the last week, numerous kids and even some “kids at heart” have passed my house on bikes and on foot like never before, their outstretched arms clutching cell phones illuminating the game’s blue glow. And it feels like those who aren’t playing, are talking about it, Tweeting about it or warning others to not get injured playing it.
On our first full day back, one daughter hit the streets on her bike with different groups of kids. When she returned home from one adventure, hosing off her mud-encased bike tires, I asked, “Where were you?”
“Searching for Pokemon,” she said.
Later that night, after working her way back from downtown Naperville, she told me I needed to see for myself. “The game is making people nicer,” she said.
And so we went.
In downtown Naperville, I witnessed groups of people crisscrossing Rotary Hill. Most were laughing and smiling and having fun.
Not to mention the exercise. Kids who haven’t left their Xboxes or Netflix subscription unattended since the start of summer are suddenly outside. Instead of staring at a large screen in a comfy chair in an air-conditioned house, these kids are walking around or trying to balance themselves on bikes while looking at their cell phones in order to play the game.
This could become a new state-mandated skill that must be demonstrated as part of a new standardized test to replace the PARRC because there is nothing more important in life than the ability to talk and walk at the same time. It is higher-level thinking at the highest level.
And that is a win, isn’t it?
I don’t know how long the Pokemon fad will last this time around, but it appears to have some staying power. At least until the player’s data runs out.
Cathy Janek is a freelance writer who lives in Naperville.
Twitter @cathyjanek
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