Unsafe at any speed: Thousands play Pokémon Go behind the wheel
If you thought that some die hard Pokémon Go fans were playing the game while also trying to drive a car, those suspicions were confirmed Friday.
A new study from the JAMA Network analyzed tweets and news items during July relating to the game and driving, and found that over 100,000 incidents of driving while playing were reported on Twitter.
14 crashes were attributed to the game in the same period, with one user driving into a tree.
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For the study, researchers analysed Twitter postings containing the terms "Pokemon" and "driving," "drives," "drive" or "car" between July 10 to July 19.
A random sample of 4,000 tweets was then reviewed by four human investigators. They looked for whether it was a driver or a passenger playing when the tweet was posted, or if a pedestrian interacted with traffic while playing Pokémon Go.
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Estimates from this sample were used to create population-level estimates, the authors said.
18 percent of the tweets indicated a person was playing and driving.
Around a third of tweets indicated that a driver, passenger or pedestrian had their head in Pokémon world, the study found, which "suggested there were 113,993 total incidences reported on Twitter in just 10 days."
Some 18% of the tweets indicated a person was playing and driving, 11% that they were a passenger and four percent a pedestrian.
Safety messages accounted for 13% of the tweets, while 54% were unclear or unrelated.
The researchers also studied Google News reports containing the words “Pokémon” and “driving” for the period, finding 321 traffic incidents and 14 separate crashes attributed to the game.
The authors hope that developers will consider the risks of in-car gameplay for future titles; they suggest several features that could be implemented to tackle the issue.
Proposals include making the game inaccessible for a period after a certain driving speed is reached, disabling it near roadways and parking lots and offering safety warnings are all ideas proposed.
Gameplay is already restricted at speeds over 10 miles per hour, they note, at which point players are required to specify that they're a passenger rather than a driver.
Niantic, the game's makers, told Mashable: "We take player safety seriously and want everybody to have a fantastic time exploring while safely playing Pokémon GO.
"Pokémon Go is not meant to be played while driving. We warn users in the app not to play the game while driving, and, when players are traveling too fast to be on foot, we require that users confirm that they are not driving, in order to proceed."
The study's focus was not just on Pokémon Go, but "the many augmented reality games to come," study author John W. Ayers, from the Graduate School of Public Health, San Diego State University, told Mashable.
"We are calling on game and mobile device makers to self regulate now and restrict access to augmented reality games in potentially dangerous settings," Ayers said.
"We also call on policy makers to begin creating legislation that mandates industry regulation of augmented reality games."
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Tim Chester was Senior Editor, Real Time News in Los Angeles. Before that he was Deputy Editor of Mashable UK in London. Prior to joining Mashable, Tim was a Senior Web Editor at Penguin Random House, helping to relaunch the Rough Guides website and other travel brands. He was also a writer for Buzzfeed, GQ and The Sunday Times, covering everything from culture to tech and current affairs. Before that, he was Deputy Editor at NME.COM, overseeing content and development on the London-based music and entertainment site. Tim loves music and travel and has combined these two passions at festivals from Iceland to Malawi and beyond.
