By Fr. Steve Ryan, SDB
The game is a location-based, augmented reality mobile game. It uses the camera on the Smartphone to project an image of a Pokémon, a virtual creature in the game. The objective is to capture as many of these creatures as possible and battle other people’s Pokémon monsters. The playing field for the game is one’s own location and surroundings. The combination of “virtual” and “real” is what seems to draw people in.
What could possibly go wrong with traveling across cities, glued to a phone, looking for fictitious creatures? Well, besides many accounts of people who have twisted their ankles, busted their shins, cut up their hands, and sustained other injuries because they were more concerned with finding Pokémon than watching where they were going, endless hours of time that could be spent helping other people or learning new things (wisdom, knowledge, skills) are wasted on a game. Time and effort that a person could spend on some pursuit that would help them prepare for a full and well-rounded life are being wasted on a distraction.
The Pokémon craze certainly shows that people, especially young people, are searching for something (not just Pokémons). They want an adventure! They want a quest. They want a cause! Too bad holiness is not as attractive to them. God is our ultimate destiny, and holiness IS the “real game of life.” We Christians have to find a way to make the quest to become a saint so attractive that people will become obsessed with it.
In Illinois, crowds gathered at one o’clock in the morning and searched frantically for a “Snorlax” monster. Additionally, at Central Park in New York City, hundreds of players were seen stampeding through the streets glued to their phones searching for another rare Pokémon. This caused traffic jams, with people abandoning their cars in the middle of the street and following the masses on their phones. All for a virtual monster.
The fact that such a game is gaining so much worldwide attention is evidence that people are “searchers.” We are made to seek something! We have a built-in desire to “look for” something, and that something is in fact God! It’s baffling, however, that that pursuit for the Almighty can easily be sidetracked into pursuing pleasure, power, purse – and this, our latest craze, virtual creatures.
Pokémon Go is another “cool substitute” for our innate search for the Lord. We are so foolish that we fall for distractions that will easily anesthetize us and prevent us from coming to terms with God and the challenging and sacrificial path of holiness. Pokémon hunters are stampeding through the streets! Could anyone imagine hundreds of people stampeding through the streets at a moment’s notice, to show solidarity for the poor and marginalized? Or to protest the thousands of Christians in the Middle East and Africa who are being killed for their faith? Or to stand up for the innocent unborn who are slaughtered in the womb?
Society allows itself to be led into a type of cyber-tribalism whereby a phone or game is the shaman. The players are all too willing to act as obsessed subjects. No thanks, for me – I’ll go with Jesus Christ and radical discipleship. It’s an obsession that’s been around for 2,000 years, and one that won’t die out.
