Pokémon Go is good for children because it brings them outdoors

Pokémon Go is a virtual reality based game that has taken the world by storm - it encourages the players to go outdoors and walk, run and discover the old-fashioned joy of playing outside. As a mother Dr Margaret McCartney, a GP, has said - this mobile phone-based virtual reality game can help make children fitter by getting them out of the house and helps to combat depression, obesity and diabetes.
This has been reported in dailymail.co.uk dated 10 August 2016.

Dr Margaret McCartney, writing in the British Medical Journal, has expressed her opinion that Pokemon Go craze has led to the streets around her home becoming a ‘reclaimed playground in which to have some interconnected fun’. She has explained in the app, players hunt virtual creatures in train stations, parks and other real-life locations and, such hunting encourages walking.
Unfortunately, it is not marketed as a health app but as a video game, hence, it should reach out to an audience that conventional health apps may miss. She accompanies her eight-year-old son ‘for miles’ as he plays Pokemon Go and the game may help children to play outside again.
However, caution must be exercised because the game draws the players to real places, making it easy for criminals to spot congregation points. There have been reports that teenagers in London were robbed of their phones at gunpoint and American players have been involved in real shootouts.


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Vadodara museum bans entry of Pokemon GO players in its premises

Vadodara museum has officially banned Pokemon GO players from its premises because of security reasons and safety of visitors to the museum. A notice has been put up at the gate of the over 100-year-old Baroda Museum and Picture Gallery. It reads - "No entry for Pockemon-Go players in the museum campus By order (sic)".
The museum administration have also increased security in the premises to tackle the nuisance of players walking into the premises.
This has been reported in timesofindia.indiatimes.com dated 4 August 2016.

The apparent reason for this decision was reports from several guests and visitors who complained that Pokemon GO players were barging into the premises and disturbing them. These Pokemon GO players have also been seen walking through the grassy patch in the area around the museum.
In the opinion of the museum curator, the game is infectious and the attention of players is confined to their mobile phones. Many of the players gather in the grassy patch behind the museum that has long grass and these are having poisonous snakes and insects that can be dangerous. In spite of warnings, the players do not bother, hence the ban.
Incidentally, Pokemon GO is a GPS-based game that has hooked the attention of youngsters who walk down city streets and into buildings to collect Pokemons.


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Playing Pokemon GO lands 23-year-old Iowa footballer in police trouble

Pokemon Go is the latest craze that has taken the world by storm and a 23-year-old football player in Iowa discovered the hard way that the game is loaded with danger. Oblivious of his surroundings, he was so engrossed in the game in Iowa City Park that he suddenly found himself in the cross hairs of four police guns.
His crime was that he looked very much like a man who had robbed a bank a stone's throw away.
This has been reported in nzherald.co.nz dated 25 July 2016.

The 1.92m, 130kg athlete was "happy to be alive" after five police officers stopped him and pointed four guns at him. He fit the description of a man who had just robbed a bank less than 10 minutes ago. The suspect had been described as a large black male, wearing all black, with something on top of his head and was armed.
While driving past the park located less than three minutes away from the bank that had just been robbed, they notice a large black man, dressed in all black, with black goggles on his head. Obviously, they moved into action, identified themselves as the Iowa City police and ask him to turn around and place his hands up in the air.
He did not comply because he had his headphone on and just could not hear them!!
It was sheer Providence that saved him otherwise it could have ended in a nasty and unpleasant situation.


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Teenagers in Missouri use Pokemon GO smartphone game to rob people

Pokemon GO is a new smartphone based game and four teenagers of Missouri have been used this popular new game to lure victims to certain locations and rob them. The Pokemon GO game is a smartphone geo-caching game and it sends players to different locations - Pokestops - to collect various creatures. These creatures appear on the screen of the phone as if they were in the real world.
This has been reported in news.sky.com dated 11 July 2016.

The game was released in the US last week after its launch in Australia and New Zealand, and it has become a very popular game and is struggling with demand. The police of St Louis have come across four teenagers who may have been involved in nearly a dozen robberies in St Louis, St Louis County and St Charles County.
The game entices the victims to come to a place in O'Fallon, just outside St Louis, before robbing them.
The four of them were allegedly spotted in a black BMW near a petrol station at about 2am Sunday local time, when police were called to reports of a robbery. They were arrested and police found a handgun. Three of them have been charged with first-degree robbery and armed criminal action. The fourth youngster is a 16-year-old and is in juvenile custody.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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