Pokémon Go Has Created a New Kind of Flâneur

In the augmented-reality smartphone app Pokémon Go, players journey from their homes to search for virtual Pokémon and assorted venues of play tagged to locations in the real world. With an estimated 7.5 million U.S. downloads since its July 6 release, the game is a bonafide craze.

This has created a new class of urban explorers, roaming busy streets and sidewalks—where there's more density, there's more game action—with phones in hand, occasionally lifting their eyes to register actual surroundings. Sometimes this leads to pleasant real-world discoveries; perhaps a "Pokéstop" is tagged to a local landmark or building that went previously unappreciated. Other times the game leads to dead bodies and the arms of robbers. (Yes, all while collecting reams of personal data.)