County residents weigh in on Pokemon Go craze
HOULTON, Maine — Tina Haggerty of Houlton has always encouraged her son, Trevor, 14, to spend more time outside during the summer.
“It seems like every summer break we have the same conversation,” she said recently. “I always have to practically pry game controllers out of his hand and make him go outside and play something like basketball or baseball.”
So Haggerty was especially shocked this summer when Trevor began spending hours outside, walking around the community with his friends — and it took a game to make him do it.
Trevor Haggerty is one of millions of people across the nation who are playing Pokemon Go, a game which allows players to use smartphones or other mobile devices to catch virtual Pokemon characters that appear to pop up on their screens. The game has been lauded for helping people get more exercise and for bringing in more business to local stores. At the same time, a number of car crashes and other mishaps have been tied to the game due to distracted players, including an incident in which two youths from Canada last month made an illegal border crossing into Montana while playing, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. Locally, state police were called on July 29 to investigate the case of a 14-year-old male who was supposed to walk to a relative’s home in Houlton but had not shown up by 1 a.m. After a brief search, troopers found the youth, who admitted that he was playing Pokemon Go and had lost track of time, according to information provided by police.
Trevor Haggerty said that he loves the game.
“It is fun to get together with your friends and see what characters they got,” he said. “If it weren’t for this game, I’d just be sitting around the house.”
Anne Johnson, 34, of Caribou said she got into the game after hearing about its popularity on the news.
“I really am not a person who likes video games,” she said. “But when I started playing and realized that it was something that got you outside more and gave you this feeling of being an explorer, it really started to grow on me. It is almost like a scavenger hunt.”
Johnson said she caught a digital character up in Fort Kent recently during a trip to the Mooseshack Restaurant.
“I was really excited,” she said.
Others, however, just don’t see the appeal of the game.
“We live in one of the most beautiful areas in Maine, and it is summertime, which is always very short,” said John Berry of Houlton. “And you go outside and see all of these people walking around staring at their phones. Maybe I am too old fashioned, but that doesn’t sound like much fun to me.”
