This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Pokemon Go. I'm not going to criticize it too much. Mainly because I've played and imagined even stupider wastes of time in my life.

For those unfamiliar with this new electronic game sensation, players essentially use their cellphones to physically track down imaginary characters and tussle with them for the purpose of … well, I don't know that part. I don't plan on finding out, either.

The characters — bunnies, turtles, eggs, birds — are visible in real time on the screen. It requires intense concentration to capture them.

The point is that playing Pokemon Go is so absorbing that people not only forget it isn't real, but also stop paying attention to stuff that actually is. Things like open manholes, cliffs, traffic, dangerous alleys and "Beware of Dog" signs.

Pokemon Go has already been blamed for car crashes, assaults, bad falls, failed relationships, elephant stampedes and possibly even the start of another %&@# religion. That's what happens when you aren't paying attention.

I've been through it myself. When the electronic game Pong first came out in the early '70s, everyone raved about it. A game that you could actually play on a television screen. Far out.

Pong was simplistic compared to the games of today. Neanderthals could have played Pong. Hell, Neanderthals probably invented it. Graphically poor and feloniously simple, it soon became boring.

My friends and I got around the boredom by playing Pong while stoned. I don't believe any of us ever finished an entire game. Certainly none of us won a match on purpose.

The one thing you couldn't do with Pong back then was play it while driving, hiking or skydiving. Pong was played on a box the size of a small refrigerator. You pretty much had to stay put in order to play it.

Every generation seems to have an alternate reality fixation/addiction. My personal favorites were plastic army men as a kid, and Xbox as a quasi-adult. Compared with Pokemon Go, forays into these "imaginary worlds" were only slightly risky.

The worst thing that ever happened to me playing with army men was when I threw a rock through the back window of the garage while trying to bomb a sand fort I'd built.

Note: I had previously beaned my friend Duncan in the head with a rock (four stitches' worth) while aiming for some plastic tanks, but it was the garage window that merited an actual whacking.

Xbox could be equally hazardous, like when I played for hours instead of fixing the washing machine as my wife had told me to do. She never understood the sense of accomplishment that came with saving the planet — even if it wasn't a real one.

There is one thing about alternate reality type games that worries me. What if they aren't an alternate reality? What if the stuff you're doing is actually happening in another dimension?

Suppose Pokemon Go, Call of Duty, Street Fighter or Mario Brothers were real, that they were true alternate realities that we allowed ourselves to be dragged into as part of the spectacle. We would have no idea the damage we were causing by participating in it.

It would explain a lot, though. You think Pokemon Go is potentially dangerous? Just wait until we get to Level 10 of "Trump and Hillary."

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley.