Abstract
Around every new media technology debates circle about whether the technology is bringing people socially closer or pushing us further apart. According to popular press accounts, Pokémon GO players are absorbed into a game world on their phone with no attention or interest in the “real” world around them. But coupled with these accounts are stories of people exploring their neighborhoods and of marriage proposals in the midst of Pokémon hunting. This article puts Pokémon GO into a longer context of mobile technologies and sociospatial practice to explore the kinds of social interactions that can emerge around and through the use of Pokémon GO. In particular, the article explores how people can use the platform as both an involvement shield and social catalyst.
Outside the pages of Mobile Media and Communication, the collective disdain for mobile phones is palpable. Google’s first three suggested search terms for “cell phones are. . .” include the devil, dangerous, and evil, suggesting that these are commonly searched terms. So it is no surprise that various mobile apps are also bound up in negative discourse regarding their deleterious effects on individuals as well as society. Pokémon GO is the latest such culprit.
Throughout July and August of 2016, Pokémon GO received a fair bit of negative press. Stories circulated about players going to inappropriate places such as the Holocaust Museum or an old church that has been turned into a private home to capture Pokémon and play against others (Ohlheiser, 2016; Peterson, 2016). Articles reported people physically putting themselves or others in physical danger while in search of Pokémon (Frank, 2016; Rosenberg, 2016). In late August 2016, news reported the first death ostensibly due to Pokémon GO player negligence (Soble, 2016). According to these accounts, Pokémon GO players become absorbed into a game world on their phone with no attention or interest in the “real” world around them. The game had made them a menace both to themselves and to those around them.
But coupled with this negative discourse were accounts of the positive effects of Pokémon GO. Stories emerged of people going to parks and public spaces, which previously were underused (Perry, 2016). Most prominent were stories about “gamers” finally leaving their couches and exploring their neighborhoods. Indeed, the chief executive of Niantic, the company who created Pokémon GO and its preceding game Ingress, was quoted: “Everyone is spending all this time inside, by their computers. No one goes to the local parks. We wanted to do something that was aspirational: Let’s get people outside” (Goel, 2016, p. 4). Pokémon GO had succeeded in getting people outside and moving around.
Conflicting reports about the effects of Pokémon GO reflect deeper themes about the role of mobile technology, public space, and social interaction. In this article, I aim to situate Pokémon GO into a longer context of mobile technologies and sociospatial practice to explore how Pokémon GO may be both bringing people socially closer or pushing us further apart.
Mobile technology and social interaction
Bringing people together
Mobile technologies can act as social catalysts in three primary ways. First, mobile platforms themselves are designed to facilitate engagement (Ling, 2008; Ling & Campbell, 2011). Calling and texting have long strengthened social ties (Ling, 2008), but newer platforms such as Grindr, Tindr, and Swarm are examples of location-based mobile apps designed to allow people to find one another, chat, and meet up. While Pokémon GO is not necessarily marketed as a social networking tool, its team features can facilitate in-group closeness and allow players to battle rival teams. Research in gaming reveals that social interaction with other players is a common motivation for play (Hjorth & Richardson, 2014). Second, mobile platforms can also facilitate social interaction among people who play together. People don’t tend to go out in public alone and will enlist friends to go with them while they use these mobile technologies (Humphreys, 2007). Third, social interactions emerge in response to mobile technology use (Ling, 2008). Bystanders or nonusers also can interact with one another in response to witnessing or even reading about technology use (Humphreys, 2005a). For example, people complaining about Pokémon GO even if they don’t use it, is a form of social interaction that the game has indirectly facilitated.
Some interactions may be subtle. Indeed Lofland (1998) suggests a subtle familiarity with others can change how we interact with them and with space. When people share information through technology, it can also contribute to a sense of commonality among strangers, a process called parochialization (Humphreys, 2010; Humphreys & Liao, 2013). As Pokémon GO players hunt among others in public places, join teams, or battle for gyms, they may engage in tactic interactions with other players, contributing to parochialization.
Parochial interactions also occur in response to an event mutually witnessed (Lofland, 1998). A silent but mutual eye gaze (or eye roll) in response to another’s social faux pas, such as excessively loud mobile phone conversations, is not an uncommon occurrence in the parochial realm (Humphreys, 2005b). Parochial interactions among those around Pokémon GO players are also likely to occur. These subtle and fleeting interactions, whether in response to something positive or negative, enrich the social fabric of public life.
Pulling people apart
Research also reveals the ways people use mobile technology in ways that distance them (Ling, 2008). The norms around mobile use in public are still disputed (Rainie & Zickuhr, 2015). Licoppe (2008) argues any summons, even from a mobile phone, socially obliges us to answer. Thus people may not mean to distance themselves from others, but do when beholden to a buzzing phone or one where creatures pop up on the screen.
Sometimes social distancing with mobile phones is purposeful (Ling, 2008). Involvement shields (Goffman, 1971) have long allowed people to avoid social interaction with others by discouraging people from approaching and starting a conversation. Holding up a newspaper or pretending to be using a phone are ways to avoid social interactions, such a panhandling. Social avoidance is a complicated social dance that many engage in while using mobile services without really thinking. Pokémon GO could be used to intentionally or unintentionally increase social distance.
Conclusion
Pokémon GO is not the first, nor will it be the last technology to be blamed for its harms to society. But such discourse revokes any agency from users of such technologies. As Eszter Hargittai (2016) argued, “The problem isn’t the technology, but rather how some people use it.” When public discourse suggests technology is the only driving force for good or bad, it leaves us powerless to examine and combat the negative implications outside of technological means. Totalizing language regarding the effects of media technologies is not only empirically inaccurate, but also stifles more complex understandings and literacies regarding the very media technologies that have become central to our everyday lives.
Future research should examine the complex interactions among users, designers, engineers, institutions, and policy. For example, Pokémon GO maps could be a lens to highlight the ways players and bystanders are technologically and infrastructurally brought together and pushed apart. Social norms and legal policies will also continue to be a fruitful area for research around mobile augmented-reality apps like Pokémon GO. This research will not only reveal the effects of new mobile technologies, but also how social and political forces are simultaneously mapped onto these technologies.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.