The whole Pokemon Go thing. When it first came out, I thought, "Huh. Sounds like kind of a fun concept." You walk around in the real world and on your phone it shows you Pokemon characters you can capture.
But....yeah, it does share a lot of your information with someone, for what purposes we don't necessarily know. And I admit, in this day and age, one probably needs to ask cui bono? when there is something free on the internet. (Thus: I would be less inclined to want to do it even IF I had a smartphone and a boatload of free time).
And anyway: the boatload of free time issue. I do spend too much time online, that's why I have too many projects in various stages of being stalled out, and instead I need to work on them. And my free time tends to fall late in the evening when I'm not sure I want to be out wandering the neighborhood looking for imaginary beasts.
And a couple of news stories about it have been slightly off-putting, though again, in this day and age, when you see a news story you have to ask yourself, "How blown out of proportion is this likely to be?" or with internet news stories: "Is this from a fake news site?" (I dunno. I don't find sites like Clickhole all that funny. The Onion, at least, is sufficiently over the top and "everyone" knows it's a parody site. But there are fake-news sites that spring up like mushrooms after a rain, and I've occasionally seen a story presented as "real" that actually came from one of those sites).
Anyway: a young woman found a dead body while hunting Pokemon. (That one at least seems to be true). That's really unfortunate. There's another one being hyped about "gangs of teens" luring other teens to some area to rob them....again, not sure if it's real, though given human depravity these days it seems plausible.
So there's the predictable backlash.
And then there's the back-backlash, for lack of a better term: Breathless news story this morning on local news about "OH MY DID YOU HEAR POKEMON GO IS ACTUALLY PERSUADING PEOPLE TO EXERCISE!" Like no one would ever do it without the chance to catch imaginary monsters.
And this is pretty much my reaction:
Yeah. My irritation is palpable. I have been exercising since roughly 1994, giving up an hour of sleep most days - an hour I could probably dearly use - so I can keep my health up. (And I originally started after having some gall bladder trouble, and my doctor intimated that if I didn't change my diet and activity level, I might need it out - and thus far, have managed to avoid same).
I complained months back about "gamification" of things: about the silly lingots on Duolingo (which don't buy ANYTHING useful), about the suggestion of offering "digital badges" for online college-level coursework.
Yeah.
So I have considerable irritation - my reaction was, "I've been exercising for 22 years, where's MY news story?" But yeah. And I admit, I think the gamification of things irritates that little part of me that's still a petulant 12-year-old, arguing with my dad over grades. See, some of my colleagues at school got paid for good grades: many of them got $10 for every A (and this was in 1980 money). One person I knew even got $20! And here I was earning good grades and getting NOTHING.
(and yeah, I know, I know. But it felt like a cheat when I was 12 and it does still kinda feel like a cheat today).
There was some joke an interim pastor we had a while back used to make, about how in some faith systems people are good to get benefits in the next life or whatever, but that Christians are pushed to be "good for nothing" (meaning, of course, good-with-no-expectation-of-return but of course there's the pun there). And I admit several times this week I've muttered about being tired of being "good for nothing."
And I'm gonna be particularly irritated if we're pushed in the future to do some kind of goofy gamification thing. Already BlackBoard has "digital badges" you can enable for online classes, though I don't know anyone who uses them.
As much as I'd like to get perks for doing what I am supposed to do anyway (which was the crux of my dad's argument, with a side of "you are gaining intangible benefits"*) I also admit irritation at having to do it for someone else. (The whole: "I get tired of reassuring other people everything will be OK when I really need reassurance myself" thing). It makes more work for the people having to gamify things, and I admit, as a Gen-Xer, it does make me want to throw up my hands and go, "See? This is another way my generation gets it stuck to them! We never got any of these goodies but now we have to take the time to provide them to the youngsters!"
(No, I did not have to walk five miles in the snow to get to school, uphill both ways, but some days it feels like that)
(* Now I think, had I wanted to be really offensive, I could have said, "Yeah, that and $50 will get me a pair of designer jeans" but I wouldn't have actually said that)
Anyway. This morning I discovered one of my colleagues - someone I had branded in my mind as More Serious Than Me is playing it - his TA was teasing him about "wandering all over town looking for Pokemon" and I admit I was surprised. (This is someone I would definitely peg as "more mature" than me).
And, I don't know. Part of me is delighted: "why, maybe there's nothing at all wrong with me watching cartoons if Dr. W. is playing Pokemon Go!" but part of me is also slightly sad: "I wish I weren't so buttoned up and so careful about not appearing "ridiculous" in class that I can't be more open about what my life outside of class is." (Seriously: most of the students don't know me at all, to the point where some call me Mrs. Lastname, assuming someone of my age MUST be married.) I dunno. It's a hard balance to strike and I admit part of it is being very put off by a sad situation in grad school - we had a probie professor (an assistant prof without tenure yet) who was let go because of his drinking habits. (He persisted despite warnings; he probably had a problem and perhaps it could have been dealt with more productively, I don't know). Anyway, I remember one of my undergrad students exclaiming "Wow. Dr. X. is great! I love a professor who will go out and get drunk with his students!" I don't THINK the student was being sarcastic (sometimes I have a hard time with tone of voice and take sarcastic statements literally, but from what I knew of this student...) and I cringed for Dr. X. And I decided from then on that I would present a super-professional persona to the world. (To the point where, if I'm working on something "odd" - like a crocheted pony - I don't bring it along as "exam invigilating work," even) I mean, I get nervous buying things like feminine hygiene supplies locally in case one of my students is the checkout person (Awkward, super awkward).
And I don't know. Again, I think this is for me, partly a Dr.-Pryce-whistling-as-he-swings-his-briefcase-on-the-way-to-school** issue for me: I am asking myself, why cannot I be more "fun" in certain senses, why am I so all-fired SERIOUS about so many things. I don't know.
(**A former high school teacher of mine - now gone on to his reward - who used to walk to campus in the morning whistling and swinging his briefcase and who seemed far more carefree than I ever can be)
But yeah. This is a difficult week for me, this week - at the end of it I have to go off to the meetings, I have a lot of things to do before then, my allergies are bad, and I'm kind of frustrated by some things in daily life.
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