Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks? WEB: The phone-free are finding themselves unwelcome in more places
Timothy P. Carney
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“I’ve got the ticket framed from Strasburg’s first game,” John bragged, noting it was pure luck that he got to see the major league debut of the Washington Nationals’ longtime ace and World Series MVP. “What would you do these days? I guess you just print off the screen of your iPhone?”
Welcome to the ballpark of 2023, where just about everything seems to require a smartphone.
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Your Android or iPhone is required to participate in much of public life these days, and the phone-free are finding themselves unwelcome in more and more places.
The National Zoo in Washington, which is free to visit, started requiring tickets as a crowd-control measure during COVID-19 and continues to require them. Of course, the tickets are requested and issued over the internet, typically for smartphones. The zoo maintained this policy into 2023, which Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) pointed out “deters both visits from those without access to a smartphone or the internet and spontaneous visits.”
Nationals Park also issues digital tickets that you need to display on your smartphone in order to enter. The team has no Will Call window, notes that “tickets purchased directly from the Nationals must be presented within the MLB Ballpark app,” and explains that “to improve security and reduce the risk of ticket fraud, print-at-home tickets in any form are no longer accepted for entry.”
So what are children to do?
Many teenagers do not have smartphones, and frankly, they shouldn’t. Smartphones are addictive to everyone, and they are especially harmful to children. A group of smartphone-less 14-year-olds used to be able to ride the Metro, buy tickets with their own cash, and then use whatever money was left over to buy peanuts and a hot dog.
Now the stadium has no real ticket window, and if you have cash, I’m told that “you can pay for a bar code to scan at the concession stands,” one concessionaire told me. Of course, you can’t cash out anything left on that prepaid bar code at the end of the game.
So what are we to think of places such as the National Zoo and Nationals Park? Are they happy to be forcing children onto smartphones? Or do they just forget that children exist?