Why ‘Pokemon GO’ Players Need To Pay Attention To The Loading Screen
Pokemon GO has been an out of control success for Niantic, as players all around the world are bonding together in order to find the next Pokemon on their “want” list. As the Inquisitr previously reported, the Pokemon GO app has promoted unity and togetherness among players.
Unfortunately, not everything is rainbows, sunshine, and nostalgia.
One of the first screens that appear when someone opens the Pokemon GO app shows the silhouette of a boy staring at his phone without any clue that he’s about to be eaten by a Gyarados (the evolved form of Magikarp). Above his head is a giant red exclamation point and beneath him, in large font, reads:
“Remember to be alert at all times. Stay aware of your surroundings.”
Still, there have been plenty of accidents that prove that there are some Pokemon GO players that don’t pay attention to anything – let alone the real world.
Many people are aware of the case involving a fifteen-year-old girl that was hit by a car this week while playing Pokemon Go, as reported by CBS.
“That game dragged her across that highway,” Tracy Nolan, the mother of the injured girl told the publication.
The girl wasn’t actually playing the game as she crossed the highway to get home, according to the publication. Instead, she was rushing home to show her mother a Pokemon she had caught and did not look before crossing.
The mother is insisting that it’s the game’s fault because without Pokemon GO, her daughter would not have been outside because she used to be a “hermit,” as reported by WTAE.
Although that case is one of the most well-known real stories (this article will not be going into hoaxs), it is not the only instance of people getting injured because they did not heed the advice of the Pokemon GO loading screen.
According to NBC Sandiego, the two men were in their twenties and had ignored several signs posted all over the area stating that the bluffs they had decided to step onto were unstable. The men had to make the conscious decision to climb over a fence and walk to the edge of the cliff in order to fall to where the San Diego Lifeguards found them.
One of the men fell between eighty and ninety feet to the beach, while the other fell roughly fifty feet onto a ledge.
Another Pokemon GO player made the decision to play his game while driving in Auburn, New York, USA Today reported.
The man wound up driving his car off the road and into a tree. When Auburn Police responded to the scene of the accident, the unidentified male admitted to playing Pokemon GO while driving.
All of the accidents mentioned, while terrible, were completely avoidable if each person had paid attention to the clear warning on the loading screen of the Pokemon GO app.
There are, however, plenty of people that have listened to the warning so closely, that awareness of their environments have had great side effects.
One Pokemon GO player in Michigan found a woman passed out behind the wheel of her car and immediately called the authorities, according to NBC 4.
Two people in Houston, Texas wound up rescuing 20 hamsters that had been abandoned in an empty park, according to the Huffington Post.
There are many other stories of animals and people being saved by Pokemon GO players all around the internet.
Pokemon GO can be a safe and unifying game as long as players remember to keep aware of their environment and to follow the same rules as they do with texting. Never text and drive. Never catch Pokemon and drive, either.
[Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images]
