August 2016 - Parks & Recreation - 20

Roger Lew

Community Center

Pokémon Go players in an Anchorage, Alaska, park congregate and share stories.

me. This experience clashed immensely
with one I had about a year prior. Shortly
after a new " life-sized " chess board was
installed downtown, I began to notice
groups of young people gathering in the
area. One day after work, I approached a
group of adolescents who seemed to be
having a good time. I was excited to see
the new activity and greeted them with,
" Hey guys, what's going on? " My greeting was not well received. Admittedly,
the group of African-American teens
probably was not approached too often
by a white guy in business attire. What
seemed routine to me may have seemed
awkward or threatening to them. Needless to say, the interaction didn't last long
and I continued my walk home.
That memory has stuck with me, but
I encountered a vastly different postwork situation while out searching for
Pokémon along the riverfront. I can't
help but wonder: What role can technology play in bringing people together, not
only virtually but also physically? What
role does it have in civic engagement? In
public health? Social equity?
The risk here is something I've considered repeatedly during the past several
18 Parks & Recreation

What role can technology
play in bringing people
together, not only virtually,
but also physically?
years. In 2009, shortly after I dove into
the online social sphere, I took a trip to
China as a part of my MBA studies. I decided to try, for the first time, keeping an
online blog. " Aaron's Great Wall: Tumbling through China " was an experiment
for me. I wanted to see if I could be fully
immersed in learning about this foreign
land while also being fully engaged online by hyper-blogging my experiences.
The question I asked then is one I'm still
asking today, " Does giving in to the crave
to stay 'in the loop' via all this technology come at the expense of neglecting
what is actually happening around us? "
Technology to date - whether it be a
photograph, video, social media website,
virtual reality experience or otherwise -
has primarily served as a way to represent reality, but it's always lacked some

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degree of authenticity. In some instances, technology has even served to compete with reality. Here is where Pokémon
Go gets interesting. Users both interact
with the real world around them, while
also engaging with computerized animations. Some may say this is just a fad.
Pokémon Go may indeed be such, but I
think we're experiencing the tip of the
iceberg when it comes to recognizing
how augmented reality can transform
our communities. My brief involvement
with the game has already revealed a
few ways in which it can bring people
together, encourage an active lifestyle
and highlight new experiences.
In the past few decades, we've seen an
unhealthy shift in the balance between reality and technology. But, my Pokémon
Go experience has me convinced that we
may be approaching equilibrium once
again. I look forward to exploring how
this technology will further shape the
policy, programming and design of our
communities and impact the ways we relate to one another.
Aaron Perri is the Executive Director of the South
Bend, Indiana, Parks and Recreation Department
(aperri@southbendin.gov).

August 2016 - Parks & Recreation

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