Doesn't say but it sounds like they were using an autocatcher. In that case you are not "playing" as that is generally understood, you are just wearing a bracelet that does everything without you being involved at all.
“After Mitchell apparently caught the Snorlax—exclaiming, ‘Got ‘em’—petitioners agreed to ‘go get the Togetic’ and drove off.” Mitchell said that he “buried” the Togetic and used an Ultra Ball on it, and was “still trying to catch it” after quite some time.
“Holy crap, man. This thing is fighting the crap out of me,” Mitchell said, according to court records. “Holy crap. Finally …. the guys are going to be so jealous.”
Without one it’s a huge timesink and you become one of those annoying people that wanders around staring at their phone getting in people’s way.
So in a sense, you can compare it to a collector of virtual trading cards, but instead of buying card packs you get them from moving around.