metro » on the cover

Pokémon
Go!

New craze gets people
moving, but creates
security concerns, too.

LEFT: Pokémon Go character Drowsee was cap-
tured at the entrance to Congregation Shaarey
Zedek in Southfield. RIGHT: Sandshrew was
caught at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

Danny Schwartz | JN Intern

O

n July 6, the world found its
newest obsession. It’s no lon-
ger Twitter, Facebook or even
Snapchat. The current fixation is chasing
and catching characters with Pokémon Go,
the new augmented reality mobile game
by Nintendo.
The free app has been downloaded by
more than 40 million people worldwide
since its release, so you’ve probably seen
players roaming neighborhoods, parks,
schools, churches and even synagogues in
search of the virtual characters.
While the game has been amazingly
popular, it has also attracted considerable
controversy. Players have caused car and
pedestrian accidents and have become
public nuisances in many places.
Detroit’s Rabbi Jason Miller, an entre-
preneur, social media expert and JN tech-
nology columnist, sees very specific pros
and cons to the game.
“It can be dangerous if people are look-
ing at their screens while they’re walk-

16 August 4 • 2016

ing in traffic,” Miller
said. “Also, people are
playing this game in
places they certainly
shouldn’t be playing —
places like Auschwitz or
the Holocaust Memorial
Museum.
Rabbi Jason
“On the other hand,
Miller
one of the positive
aspects is that it gets
people to new places. So, for instance, if
there is a Pokémon character in a syna-
gogue, it might get people to go to that
synagogue. I have a colleague who told
me there is a Pokémon character at her
synagogue. And she asked, ‘Is this a good
thing or a bad thing for our synagogue?’
My response was it’s a good thing because
if some kid, whether Jewish or not,
comes into your synagogue looking for a
Pokémon, and you get to meet him and
talk with him and even get the chance to
educate him, then that’s a good thing.”
Pokémon Go’s augmented reality uses
your phone’s GPS to detect where you are

in the game and makes Pokémon charac-
ters appear around you (on your phone
screen). So you “gotta catch ’em all!” As
you travel, different types of Pokémon
will appear depending on where you are.
Players rack up points with each capture
(some are more scarce and more vaulable)
and move to higher levels.
Jacki Honig, Teen Network Weaver at
Congregation Shaarey Zedek, is an avid
Pokémon Go player. She downloaded
the game and has been
playing since the day
it launched. She was a
Pokémon fan when she
was a child, but this got
her back into it.
“I played with a friend
in Royal Oak and we ran
into others playing, too,”
Jacki Honig
said Honig, who would
like to play more, but
says she’s pretty busy.
“I actually don’t have time to go out
and actively play on my own time; but,
for example, I will play when I go grocery
shopping. I’ll put my phone in my cart and
catch Pokémon that way,” said Honig, 26.
She is currently on Level 7, which she says
is not particularly high, but she plans to
keep on capturing Pokémon.

SECURITY ISSUES
Nancy Heinrich, CEO of Jewish Senior
Life, which has two campuses with senior
apartments, has had to
deal with Pokémon Go
because of security risks.
“Regarding Pokémon
Go, we weighed in on the
issue with security and
we weighed in on our
concerns for the safety of
our residents,” Heinrich
Nancy Heinrich

said. “We learned through our research
that we could opt out of the game. And we
tried to opt ourselves and our own build-
ings out, but we had difficulty doing that.”
Heinrich agrees the negatives outweigh
the positives of the game on their cam-
puses.
“We have older adults who walk on our
campuses as well as children walking on
campus. So distracted driving is a prob-
lem. Bringing people into our buildings
[looking for Pokémon] is a security issue.
It just doesn’t make sense to have people
on our campus who don’t have a reason to
be there otherwise.”
Another person who has dealt heavily
with the game is Gary Sikorski, direc-
tor of community-
wide security for the
Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit
(JFMD) in Bloomfield
Township.
“Our JFMD campus
security manager worked
with the agencies [in the
Gary Sikorski
Federation building] and
the consensus was that
unlike other businesses
using it as a marketing tool or to increase
traffic, we felt we did not want the players
to come onto the campus,” Sikorski said.
“It has presented some challenges and
safety concerns, from the standpoint of
distracted drivers and distracted pedestri-
ans. We’ve had some near accidents on the
campus. We are working to remove those
campus sites from the game.”
Sikorski has consulted with a number of
area synagogues having the same issues.
“We’ve seen an increase of unwanted
visitors on our private property,” said
Morris Collins, head of security at Temple
Beth El in Bloomfield Township. “We have

JOHN HARDWICK

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GRAPHY

Playing
Pokémon Go
gets people
outside and
walking.