How PokémonGO is changing my habits

Yesterday I reached lvl 20 at PokémonGO. Nothing exceptional, I know: reports stream in every day of players hitting 30 and more. But in addition to my level, I have a rather nice collection of monsters: I’m easily able to conquer any gym and can help hold one if other Mystics rally. For someone like me, with a time-consuming job, hobbies and a weak battery on my phone, it’s no small feat.

Which means that, when the number 20 popped up in luminous blue on my screen, my very first feeling was a pang of guilt. Surely I had neglected something else to get that achievement: my boyfriend maybe (who had been complaining about my nose being glued to my screen), my other hobbies probably, or even — God forbid — my job.

Fortunately, I track my time. All I had to do to confirm my apprehensions was open Smarter Time and check my activity stats for the past few days. So, was Pokemon GO ruining my life?

First things first, let’s look at my stats from a typical day a month ago.

I had worked well enough, slept long enough and even found some time to watch TV with my boyfriend. Also, what with all the small breaks I took during the day and the increasingly heavy political climate in the UK, I had totalled 1.5h of Twitter. Business as usual.

Now let’s see what my stats from last Tuesday look like.

Notice something? That’s right, apart from the 2h of PokémonGO, very little has changed. I worked just as much, slept almost as much (in fact, the stats are so regular I’m wondering if I’m turning into a robot). Even my Art & Entertainment category is eerily similar to a month ago, although I replaced TV-watching with a BBC Proms concert. I added 1h of Transport to get there.

So where did I find the time to Catch ’em all? And what does it say about my habits?

1. The wastephone

The first thing that has sharply decreased is my social media presence. That makes sense. I mostly browse social media on my smartphone: I have a habit of reading Twitter when I wake up, before I go to bed, and every time I take a break or walk somewhere. I’m one of those phone-attached people you keep angrily bumping into.

Now, although I still read a bit of Twitter in the morning and at night, as attested by the half hour of “Social”, PokémonGO has become my go-to app for blind walking and short brain disconnections.

No issue there, I simply replaced one time-waster with another.

2. The remotivator

I’m an exceedingly lazy person. I can goad myself into doing pretty much anything, but if I didn’t make that effort, I’d probably sleep and read in a horizontal position 90% of the day (drinking beer while lying down is a challenge I’m not entirely up to yet.)

The main consequence is that I use my still-sort-of-youthful metabolism to skip breakfast and eat a pasta/canned sauce lunch, a bad habit facilitated by my working from home.

No such thing with PokémonGO! If I manage to get myself outside, I love walking, and the game is playing up to that interest. Just see what my morning and lunch look like now:

I took a break mid-morning and used my walk around the block to grab some breakfast as well as catch a couple Pidgeys. But the big thing happened at lunch. I went out, walked for a while and bought myself a nice sandwich + salad from a local store. In a 45 minutes’ time, I hatched a few eggs, and came home with a box of healthy food, a spring in my step and a bigger motivation to get back to work.

My actual “eating” time is shorter (which partly explains the 1h difference in the “Health & Hygiene” category, the other half possibly having to do with extended bath-taking), but I ended up eating better and feeling better in the afternoon.

3. The city mapper

The biggest change PokémonGO is making to my habits is my way of moving across the city. I live in London and I’ve always loved walking there, but London is a pretty big place. If you actually want to go from A to B on foot instead of hopping on the tube, it requires a bit of organisation and some mapping.

PokémonGO provides me with the extra motivation to do that. On Tuesday, we took a long walk back home from the Proms. The rest of the time, I have been haunting the streets of North and West London, going through nooks and crannies I never knew of. Instead of taking the most direct route, I follow the Pokéstops, which means I discover new places every day. I’ve walked almost 60km in the past week, and I’ve loved every step. It solidifies my feeling that I belong to London and London belongs to me — a fruitful interaction with a magical city.

Nicest of all, I’m starting to make new friends in my area. Sure, a lot of them are half my age and will go back to high-school when summer is over. But laughing with strangers while trying to catch that all-important Nidoran is a really pleasant way to spend 5 minutes or 20.

Granted, there were still moments when my boyfriend stared daggers at me while I was dumbly spamming a Hypno at the gym next door. And true, I may have arrived late at a date because I walked a couple streets too far for that extra Pokéstop.

But on the whole, PokémonGO has had an impact on my time use that’s a lot more beneficial than I feared. My secret hope is this: that once the craze settles down and I tire of staring at pixels, I keep the good habit of walking everywhere, discovering new areas and laughing candidly with strangers. Who knows, one day I might even put my phone in my pocket and enjoy the view.