Pokemon Goings On.

There have been a number of news reports lately about children playing Pokemon Go being mugged for their phones – sometimes at knifepoint, and in America, of course, at gunpoint. That’s worrying and dangerous, but it strikes me that there’s a subtler problem accruing from this craze. The question arises:

Is it possible for older children to engage with a peer group these days if they don’t have a smart phone? I should imagine it would be difficult, so what are poor parents supposed to do?

(Encourage their kids to go out and mug the children of richer parents, of course. Oh, right.)

This is nothing new; it’s how the corporate world has been dictating the conduct of society for a long time now, and keeping the vast majority of people safely distracted from the need of a radical re-distribution of wealth and re-ordering of the power structure. And we continue to allow it instead of simply saying ‘I refuse to be conned into buying this latest, utterly unnecessary gadget.’