Playing Frisbee in the park is not that different from playing Pokemon Go in the park.
I admit that this statement hits a very raw nerve in me. I really don't want to accept what I still think is likely true: playing Pokemon Go (the first of its kind, I believe) does not move us any further away from the park, from nature, from interacting with others than does a frisbee. My observation is that the people, often groups, who are playing this game are quite engaged both in the game and with each other. Pokemon Go is far from being a solitary game. My observation also is that people who use the park for other recreational amusement--like frisbee, soccer, etc.--are no more engaged with each other or with the natural setting of the park than their Pokemon Go equivalents. In fact the former seem to play their sport often with clear disregard for nature, stepping on young trees, running through prairie sections, etc. And is a frisbee really any less of a virtual object than is a pokemon figure that suddenly shows up behind a tree. Is catching the frisbee any different from "zapping" such pokemon by hitting a button on a phone? I do understand that this last question will be puzzling to some. In our materially oriented world an object that can be touched (and that may hurt us when it hits us in the head) is more real than is a figure that shows up on a screen. But for 18th and 19th century philosophers that precisely was a matter of much thought and questioning. How do we know that the world around is not just completely virtual? And what does it mean to have a virtual game in an already virtual "reality?"
One issue, often an inter-generational one, seems to be the different conceptions of what constitutes play and what work. Obviously we consider a soccer-tournament like the world-cup work. We pay inordinate sums of money to the players who work for us. While we do not yet play pokemon-go players for their play, companies have begun to pay money to people who are especially talented at playing certain first-person shooter games (FSG). Is the soccer world cup really less of a virtual activity than is and FSG? In fact, if money is what makes the decisive difference between work and play and, therefore, the difference between actual and virtual, we have long lost any solid ground to stand on when drawing distinctions.
And while we cheer on our children when they begin to play a sport--soccer, baseball, basketball . . . you name it--possibly because we believe that being committed to a sport will also help them be committed to work, we do not cheer our children on when they play video-games, inside or outside, because we somehow believe that that kind of play is less about work. Rather, we think it's a waste of time.
Not all work is like the work of being a professional athlete though. In other words, not all work is play. The work of a construction worker, miner, teacher, doctor, landscaper . . . you name it . . . is not play. Some may find enjoyment in what they do, but some also don't. None of them is likely to call their work "play." Furthermore, most of them would be insulted or at least disagree, if we called their work "virtual."
Let's assume, for now, that work and play can each be both: virtual and actual. Let's further assume that from a certain perspective much work could be called virtual while much play could be called actual. If I take these assumptions to be true and ask myself "What is it I don't like about virtual games like Pokemon Go?," I come up with only one idea: I don't like to play! It's not the fact that this game is a virtual reality game that puts me off, it is that it is "play." And what annoys me about this kind of "play" is that it fosters a special kind of oblivion, not dissimilar from when the whole world turns into the Olympics, the World Cup, the Super Bowl. This, in other words, is a kind of oblivion that could happen to us in many different circumstances; not just while playing Pokemon Go or another video-game.
To the extent that Pokemon Go encourages a kind of "oblivion of the world" (which apparently it shares with many other activities both of the virtual and the actual kind) I find it to be problematic. Such activities erase differences and different behaviors we normally adopt for different environments. They make us see only one thing. So, players of this game storm around the dunes of Lake Michigan with no regard to the erosion they cause, they invade the Smithsonian as if it is just another stage for their game, etc. It is those places and institutions that have to petition to be PokemonGo free zone. As if PokemonGo owns the world.
But, of course, the same kind of "world-oblivion" can happen when we build a pipeline from South Dakota to Illinois. We forget about the world(s) it traverses, we forget how it cuts right through them, we only see one thing: the pipeline and what it carries.
I believe we are increasingly seduced into such world-oblivion. Perhaps it is just too hard to think about the world with all its nuances, differences . . . problems and joys. This "seduction" can happen in many different ways. But to the extent we see it happening today it is possible only because of virtual media. Whether it's the news, a new movie or a virtual reality game . . . the world is brought to us by removing us from it.
This doesn't mean that all virtual activity is problematic. The work I'm doing right now, the work of pursuing and thinking through ideas, is mostly virtual (with the exception of my fingers moving across the key-board). It is the oblivion, the process by which we forget the world that exists out there, that becomes problematic and harder to tolerate. Can't we engage in the "play" of serious conversations, serious encounters with persons from places we don't yet know? Can't we engage in the "play" of travel and immersions that actually expose us to the world directly? And can't we engage with these things/people in such a way that our engagement stays open to the world at all times?
Perhaps the only difference between a group of PokemonGo players and a group of Frisbee players is that there is a tad more of a chance that I (or anyone else for that matter) could join the latter while the former seems more closed off to that possibility.
I suspect that my main objection to Pokemon Go and similar games and activities comes from a place of powerlessness to comprehend. The virtual world is closed off to me. I see it and compare it, but it remains a riddle both in its importance to younger people as well as in its functioning.
Yet, I have a suspicion that younger people play these games, learn how to play them, because the skills that it takes to play them will be increasingly useful in a world that I won't recognize anymore.
One issue, often an inter-generational one, seems to be the different conceptions of what constitutes play and what work. Obviously we consider a soccer-tournament like the world-cup work. We pay inordinate sums of money to the players who work for us. While we do not yet play pokemon-go players for their play, companies have begun to pay money to people who are especially talented at playing certain first-person shooter games (FSG). Is the soccer world cup really less of a virtual activity than is and FSG? In fact, if money is what makes the decisive difference between work and play and, therefore, the difference between actual and virtual, we have long lost any solid ground to stand on when drawing distinctions.
And while we cheer on our children when they begin to play a sport--soccer, baseball, basketball . . . you name it--possibly because we believe that being committed to a sport will also help them be committed to work, we do not cheer our children on when they play video-games, inside or outside, because we somehow believe that that kind of play is less about work. Rather, we think it's a waste of time.
Not all work is like the work of being a professional athlete though. In other words, not all work is play. The work of a construction worker, miner, teacher, doctor, landscaper . . . you name it . . . is not play. Some may find enjoyment in what they do, but some also don't. None of them is likely to call their work "play." Furthermore, most of them would be insulted or at least disagree, if we called their work "virtual."
Let's assume, for now, that work and play can each be both: virtual and actual. Let's further assume that from a certain perspective much work could be called virtual while much play could be called actual. If I take these assumptions to be true and ask myself "What is it I don't like about virtual games like Pokemon Go?," I come up with only one idea: I don't like to play! It's not the fact that this game is a virtual reality game that puts me off, it is that it is "play." And what annoys me about this kind of "play" is that it fosters a special kind of oblivion, not dissimilar from when the whole world turns into the Olympics, the World Cup, the Super Bowl. This, in other words, is a kind of oblivion that could happen to us in many different circumstances; not just while playing Pokemon Go or another video-game.
To the extent that Pokemon Go encourages a kind of "oblivion of the world" (which apparently it shares with many other activities both of the virtual and the actual kind) I find it to be problematic. Such activities erase differences and different behaviors we normally adopt for different environments. They make us see only one thing. So, players of this game storm around the dunes of Lake Michigan with no regard to the erosion they cause, they invade the Smithsonian as if it is just another stage for their game, etc. It is those places and institutions that have to petition to be PokemonGo free zone. As if PokemonGo owns the world.
But, of course, the same kind of "world-oblivion" can happen when we build a pipeline from South Dakota to Illinois. We forget about the world(s) it traverses, we forget how it cuts right through them, we only see one thing: the pipeline and what it carries.
I believe we are increasingly seduced into such world-oblivion. Perhaps it is just too hard to think about the world with all its nuances, differences . . . problems and joys. This "seduction" can happen in many different ways. But to the extent we see it happening today it is possible only because of virtual media. Whether it's the news, a new movie or a virtual reality game . . . the world is brought to us by removing us from it.
This doesn't mean that all virtual activity is problematic. The work I'm doing right now, the work of pursuing and thinking through ideas, is mostly virtual (with the exception of my fingers moving across the key-board). It is the oblivion, the process by which we forget the world that exists out there, that becomes problematic and harder to tolerate. Can't we engage in the "play" of serious conversations, serious encounters with persons from places we don't yet know? Can't we engage in the "play" of travel and immersions that actually expose us to the world directly? And can't we engage with these things/people in such a way that our engagement stays open to the world at all times?
Perhaps the only difference between a group of PokemonGo players and a group of Frisbee players is that there is a tad more of a chance that I (or anyone else for that matter) could join the latter while the former seems more closed off to that possibility.
I suspect that my main objection to Pokemon Go and similar games and activities comes from a place of powerlessness to comprehend. The virtual world is closed off to me. I see it and compare it, but it remains a riddle both in its importance to younger people as well as in its functioning.
Yet, I have a suspicion that younger people play these games, learn how to play them, because the skills that it takes to play them will be increasingly useful in a world that I won't recognize anymore.
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