An awesome side-effect to playing Pokemon Go

It’s barely been three weeks since Pokemon Go’s release and it’s already boosting past some of the most successful games in the US history. There are over ten million dedicated fans playing the game on a daily basis and the number just seems to be rising.       

It can get truly annoying especially with the hordes of Pokemon fans patrolling your neighborhood. However, apart from the negative side-effects, a new report shows that the game might make history great again.

According to Associated Press, some of the Pokemon Go addicts roaming the cities actually look up from their screens and acknowledge their surroundings while they play the game, discovering historical landmarks in the process. Players naturally visit different places to collect in-game items and that way, they are able to discover and explore these historically important locations.

‘Before I was just going from Point A to Point B, but now I'm learning things,’ 15-year-old Jaiden Cruz said while walking past the place where Abraham Lincoln spoke at an old railroad hall in Providence, Rhode Island.

In fact, this has been a conscious move as AP explains that Google signed a licensing agreement to use The Historical Marker Database – a website that locates the geographic coordinated of more than 80,000 historical locations around the world. Niantic had made use of these markers for Ingress, a 2012 mobile game that uses real-life locations. However, it never gained the kind of prominence Pokemon Go did. The company made use of the same locations.

‘Hopefully, people will take their eyes off the phone and read the historical markers,’ J.J. Prats, the founder and publisher of the volunteer-run website, said.