Is it safe to come out?
Has Pokemon Go gone?
It’s hard for me to tell, because I still see people all the time walking or driving while hypnotically staring at their smartphones. Are these – the Phonedead – playing Pokemon Go or doing one of the other needless activities available to smartphone users?
Pokemon Go hasn’t been in the news much lately. And I saw a question on the internet: “Is Pokemon Go dead?” Earlier generations have pondered the question, “Is God Dead?” So, we can see how vital computers and their recreational uses are to today’s young people.
In case you have been visiting Jupiter for the last several months, Pokemon Go is an app/game that allows players to capture Pokemon characters in real-world locations. The app makes little monsters appear on your smartphone as you walk through your actual environment as if the creatures were right in front of you. There’s more to it, but I really don’t care.
Launched in early July , Pokemon Go skyrocketed in popularity and soon had more daily users than Twitter. It’s become one of the most popular apps in history.
Pokemon users made news by obliviously walking into walls, trees, holes, cars and injuring themselves.
Within just a couple of months, I read, Pokemon Go went into decline, losing millions of users worldwide. That’s the thing with fads: easy come, easy go. But Pokemon Go isn’t going down without a fight. An update called Pokemon Go Buddy apparently now is available. So there is hope for the Phonedead.
And that’s a depressing thought.
Through the computer, technology has made available to us all the great masterpieces of art, literature, music, drama. History, philosophy, knowledge of all kinds is at our very fingertips.
More Top Picks Best Fitness Trackers For Swimming
Never in human history has so much of the very best of mankind been offered to so many people.
We should be enjoying another renaissance.
Instead, millions of us are wandering around, eyes glued to a phone searching for non-existent monsters for heaven knows what purpose. Or, we are zombie-like walking into the Grand Canyon while texting what we ate for lunch.
Is this what technology has brought us to?
Is Pokemon Go and its ilk the end-point of all our striving and learning over the ages?
Is this the way the world ends, not with a bang, but with an app?
Paul Sassone is a freelance columnist for Pioneer Press.