On the 5th of July 2016, Nintendo launched what would become one of the most popular
mobile games of all time – Pokémon Go.
The game was an instant cultural phenomenon, breaking multiple world records in its first
month.
After just 20 days, it passed over $100 million in revenue and by the end of the year had
been downloaded more than 260 million times.
Its hook was a burgeoning technology in the mobile realm called augmented reality.
Using your phone, the game projected virtual Pokémon onto your real-life environments.
You might turn a corner and run into a wild Jigglypuff or visit the library and see Pikachu
hanging out.
The game even transformed actual locations into gyms where players could battle each
other and PokéStops where they could collect items.
This was more than just a gimmick.
Through the power of AR, players were transported directly into their favorite fictional world,
blurring the boundaries between game and reality, and fans loved it.
But as Pokémon Go was smashing records, a darker side was quickly emerging.
Immediately following its release, hundreds of Pokémon Go-related accidents were reported
around the globe.
Many of these were traffic incidents involving players who were distracted by the game’s
immersive AR technology.
In fact, a study by Purdue University found that in just one county in Indiana there was
a 26.5% increase in accidents at intersections within 100 meters of PokéStops.
These accidents accounted for 31 injuries and two deaths across the United States.
Other players injured themselves after being led by the game into dangerous or otherwise
off-limit areas.
In one such case, two men in San Diego were hospitalized after climbing through a fence
and falling down an unstable cliffside.
Pokémon Go was so absorbing that not only did it inadvertently cause an international
surge in traffic accidents, but it actually seemed to be motivating players to break the
law and risk their own well-being in order to “catch them all”
Thankfully, incidents have dropped significantly since their peak in 2016, but Pokémon Go-related
accidents continue to be a problem.
As recently as August of 2022, two people In Argentina were killed when a man lost control
of his vehicle while playing the game.
In total, 26 people have died in the pursuit of all things Pokémon.
This is the inherent danger with blurring the lines between reality and virtual reality.
And that’s not even the worst of it all.
Smartphones have long aspired to break down the barriers between users and the digital
realm.
For the most part, this has been successful.
So much so, that many people view their smartphones as an extension of themselves.
In a sense, technology has become a part of us.
Augmented reality takes this idea to the next level by fully merging the digital with the
physical.
It works by overlaying computer generated sensory information on top of a person’s
environment in real time.
This might include anything from a heads-up display feeding users information, to full
on computer-generated characters that appear as if they’re standing right in front of
you.
Unlike virtual reality which creates a totally different artificial environment, AR allows
us to stay grounded in the real world merely adding digital information as a secondary
facade.
Currently, this technology is mostly used by smartphones, but it’s not hard to imagine
a future in which wearables become dominant.
Products like Google Glass have already been trying to do this since 2013.
And although those initial attempts proved to be less than successful, tech companies
haven’t given up.
Apple is predicted to launch their own AR headset as early as 2023.
As if that weren’t enough, earlier this year, Mojo Vision revealed a working prototype
of an augmented reality contact lens.
Less obtrusive than glasses and nearly invisible, devices like these could one day become as
ubiquitous as smartphones.
Although not yet available to the public, Mojo has demonstrated that this technology
isn’t a thing of the future, it’s already here.
The potential applications of AR are essentially limitless.
Imagine looking around a grocery store and knowing the nutritional information of every
item on the shelves, or being able to follow GPS directions merely by glancing down at
the sidewalk.
The benefits to every field, from medicine and engineering to art and education, are
invaluable.
And it is this sheer usefulness and practicality that makes it inevitable.
However, one serious drawback of this technology is that it makes it even harder to unplug.
Spending a few hours staring at your phone is bad enough, but what about being immersed
all day in a digitally altered environment?
What kind of effect would that have on us?
Phone addiction is already something that millions of people struggle with.
It can lead to communication problems, low self-confidence, trouble sleeping and even
health issues.
Think you’re not addicted?
Let me ask you this: how did you feel the last time you lost your phone?
Did you get anxious?
Frustrated?
Did you tear apart your house in a panic-fueled frenzy?
If you did, you’re not alone.
Every one of us has been trained to value these devices above all else, conditioned
by a thousand different apps all competing for our ever-dwindling time and attention.
We often prioritize our digital lives over our real ones, ignoring friends and family
in favor of endlessly scrolling through posts from followers and subscribers.
Because profits are directly tied to screen time, app companies are financially incentivized
to keep us locked to our phones.
The best way to do this is by manipulating human psychology.
One method is data collection.
By recording where on the internet you spend your time and money, companies can feed your
interests back to you in an infinite echo chamber of targeted content.
As anyone who’s been on TikTok can tell you, it’s highly effective.
But an even more powerful strategy is gamification.
This is the practice of adding game-like elements such as point scoring, competition and rules
to non-game settings.
Humans are naturally competitive.
We want to be the best whether that means getting the highest score, completing the
most difficult quests or obtaining the rarest items.
We already do this in our regular lives with our jobs, with our purchases, but the internet
has expanded this, creating new kinds of competition.
Social media is the most obvious example.
Metrics such as likes and follower counts function as “points” and the algorithms
behind these platforms are designed to promote accounts with the highest numbers.
This creates rivalry between users as we all attempt to outperform one another like a virtual
keeping up with the Joneses.
For some, there’s also an additional monetary incentive.
Many content creators and social media influencers depend on the income they receive from these
platforms.
Likes and subscribers aren’t just a means of attaining status or self-validation to
them, it literally affects their ability to earn a living.
The competition then is even more serious.
But gamification isn’t limited to social media.
Everything from meditation to navigation apps have implemented this strategy in one form
or another.
Unlike data collection and targeted content which simply recycle our interests, gamification
keeps us invested by creating stakes.
You’re not just sitting in a lotus position and breathing calmly for fifteen minutes,
you’re earning points you can redeem for in-app purchases or badges to show off to
your friends.
On the flip side, if you miss a day, there goes all your progress and you have to start
over.
As Pokémon Go has shown, games can be so addictive that players are willing to jeopardize
their own health and safety in pursuit of virtual rewards, but the best example of this
actually happened in the days before Android and iOS became part of the cultural lexicon.
In 2004, Blizzard Entertainment released World of Warcraft, the massively multiplayer online
role-playing game that would redefine the genre and become nearly synonymous with the
idea of video game addiction.
For most, WoW, as it came to be known, was just a fun hobby.
You’d log in for an hour here and there, go on some quests, hang with friends, and
then sign off.
But other players’ relationship with WoW was less casual.
For some, it became a full-blown obsession.
These individuals spent thousands of hours, literal years, grinding away, trying to acquire
new gear for their characters.
People sacrificed their health, lost jobs and ruined relationships in pursuit of virtual
items.
Multiple articles, documentaries and books have been written on the topic.
At one point, there was even a Wowaholics Anonymous, an entire community devoted to
helping players quit.
Games are incredibly effective at keeping us playing because they engage our brain’s
natural reward and punishment system.
Every time you catch a Pokémon, earn a new piece of equipment for your WoW character
or gain a follower on Instagram, you’re treated to a hit of powerful neurochemicals
that ensure you’ll keep coming back for more.
Then if you decide to take some time off, well, we’ve all experienced the horror of
seeing our follower count go down and feeling the immediate jolt of self-doubt and insecurity
that comes with it.
Dopamine specifically plays a big role in these behaviors.
Called the pleasure molecule, this neurotransmitter drives motivation.
It pushes us to seek out what makes us feel good, then rewards us for doing so, encouraging
repetition.
Tech companies understand how this system works and the most effective means of leveraging
it.
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic when the entire planet’s population was
locked indoors and glued to their screens, Instagram pulled a bait and switch on its
users.
In perhaps one of the most explicit examples of predatory capitalism in recent memory,
they released an update that replaced the app’s basic activity button with a button
that linked users to a shopping tab.
Millions of people conditioned to hit a specific part of their screen in order to receive a
hit of dopamine were now being redirected to make purchases.
This is a terrifying realization, especially as we appear headed toward a future where
these companies will literally shape our world through the power of augmented reality.
Yes, the characters and environments created by AR may not be physically present, but we
will interact with them as if they were.
So, really, what’s the difference?
Currently, AR is limited to visual and audio information as in the case of Pokémon Go,
but in theory this technology could include touch, smell, even taste.
In a previous video, I talked about Neuralink, Elon Musk’s implantable brain-machine interface
that aims to once and for all eliminate the barriers between human beings and their devices.
With Neuralink, we could potentially control an AR device like Google Glass or Mojo’s
contact lens just by thinking.
More than that, these devices could send back sensory information to our brains.
Not only could you catch and battle Pokémon, but you might actually be able to reach out
and touch one.
Again, these aren’t some far off, futuristic ideas.
All of this technology exists today.
While I can’t deny the allure of being able to scratch Pikachu on the head, the potential
implications of all this are truly frightening.
Augmented reality, with everything it promises, seems poised to become an even more distracting
and addictive version of smartphones.
It's now at a stage where the future it paints feels downright claustrophobic.
Picture being surrounded by streaming walls of information, hordes of virtual characters
all vying for your attention, digital traffic signs and advertisements crowding streets
and storefronts everywhere you go.
No matter if it's a city with 10 million people or a town with only 100.
What started as a way of supplementing the physical world could very easily turn into
our sole focus.
Impossible to ignore, endlessly distracting and always right in front of us.
Real life may then become merely an intrusion into our digital pursuits, leaving us increasingly
disconnected from the very environments that our AR creations are projected on top of.
Assuming your augmented reality device is something more akin to Google Glass and not
an intracranial implant like Neuralink, you could just take it off.
But if you do, what might you miss out on?
What rewards will go unclaimed, what opportunities will pass you by?
The cost of unplugging may simply be too high.
But if you’re always plugged in, what’s to prevent tech companies from gamifying every
part of our lives?
What’s to stop them from turning reality into one giant video game?
And if that isn’t terrifying enough, consider this.
The key component of AR is of course the camera.
The device needs to be able to see to map digital information onto the environment.
Because of this, a necessary consequence of augmented reality is opening up every moment
of our lives to data collection.
Security concerns aside, which are considerable, companies would potentially have access to
greater and more intimate data than ever before.
The sheer amount of information generated by one individual alone would be staggering,
and all of it could be used by companies to create the most immersive, most addictive
experiences possible.
Think back to the grocery store example.
What if besides just being able to see every product’s nutritional information, you were
rewarded for buying certain items?
In a perfect world, you might imagine that this system would incentivize healthier choices,
but in all likelihood every food company, whether they’re making kale chips or Double
Stuf Oreos, will get in on the action.
What we could end up with is a proverbial race to the bottom as we spend all our time
trying to earn fabricated digital rewards created by companies that only have their
own financial interests in mind.
If we’re not careful, we might very well find ourselves living in a society where every
aspect of our lives becomes about competition, where we’re all addicted to virtual point
scoring, and where the game never ends.
Today’s video was sponsored by Brilliant, one of the best places online to learn anything
and everything STEM-related.
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