The CoreWalking team has expanded. Jacob Gordon is our newest employee and he wanted to weigh in with his experiences of walking the city and playing Pokemon Go.
So welcome Jacob:
Over the past few months, Pokémon GO has become one of the most widely popular and discussed mobile games of all time.
While most apps and games that become popular don’t generate all that much discussion in the realm of health benefits, Pokémon GO has garnered a lot of attention and praise for getting people to walk more.
My response to this is? Great!
Recreational walking is always good for everyone, and catching new Pokémon seems to be great motivation for people to get out and walk, including myself (level 30 as of today, and proud!).
However, as fantastic as the game is, it’s important to notice how we’re walking when we play. Most Pokémon GO players take advantage of every moment that they walk anywhere to keep the game open and thus log their walking distance to gain experience points and hatch Pokémon eggs.
This means that anytime they walk during the day, they have the game open and their eyes on their phone. And here’s where the problem comes in – how do you look at your phone when you walk? I have a feeling the answer is by holding your phone with your arm almost completely extended down, and bending or craning your neck significantly downwards to look at it.
This presents a few problems, which have been covered in a few past blog posts.
First, tilting your neck downward for extended periods of time is not the ideal position for it to carry the full weight of your head.
Second, it distracts you from paying attention to exactly how you are walking. We’ve gone over before that while getting in a ton of steps and walking distance is great, quality matters just as much as quantity.
Pokémon GO is awesome – it gets people to walk, and it puts Pokémon in our real world. By all means, go out and try to catch ‘em all – but try to walk correctly while you do it.