WAPO: Can’t afford a smartphone? That’s going to cost you.

Can’t afford a smartphone? That’s going to cost you.

Access to services, benefits and discounts is migrating to mobile apps — and leaving the needy behind.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/12/04/smart-phone-access-unequal/




The gleaming blue booths popped up this year in busy urban spaces such as Dupont Circle, Columbia Heights and downtown D.C., providing convenient, clean and free toilets for people who find themselves in urgent need.

Which is a blessed relief — except for those who don’t carry phones, a group particularly populated by old folks, the homeless and the poor. To get into one of about a dozen freestanding Throne bathrooms in the District and certain suburbs, you need to unlock the door with either a QR code or a text sent to the company.

Under the provider’s deal with the D.C. government, which signed a $410,000 contract for the first year of service (since extended into next year), Throne offers access for the phone-less via a free entry card available at senior centers, libraries and programs for the homeless. But according to Jessica Heinzelman, the co-founder of Throne, only 63 cards have been distributed, which suggests that a rapidly growing problem of unequal access won’t be solved with plastic.




A public restroom in Fairfax operated by Throne Labs uses smartphones as the primary way to gain access. (Courtesy of Throne Labs)


Too often now, in matters meaningful and meaningless, the good stuff is reserved for people who have smartphones or other digital tools. From parking garages to airplane movie offerings, it pays to be digitally equipped. More to the point, it hurts to be in the technological slow lane.

Consider how store deals and discounts are distributed these days: Printed circulars are fading out or gone; instead, would-be customers receive offers via text or email. Nice and clean, but think about who is left out — the very people who could benefit most from cheaper goods.

A few weeks ago, when I pulled into the parking lot at the discount supermarket I frequent, an attendant was warning customers that henceforth, all motorists would be charged $50 if they didn’t check in via QR code for free parking every time they entered. An elderly woman protested that she didn’t have a smartphone and didn’t know how to use a QR code.

The response, to a woman who had considerable trouble moving around, was: “You can go park in the neighborhood.”

New technologies require new tools, obviously. When the telephone replaced the telegraph, people who didn’t quickly adopt the new device were at a disadvantage. When cars replaced horses as the primary means of getting around, those who couldn’t afford the new technology were literally left behind.

It’s hardly surprising that restaurants are moving toward easily updated QR code menus, or that airlines are forgoing seatback screens in favor of passengers streaming entertainment on their personal screens. Fully 91 percent of Americans have smartphones, up from 35 percent in 2011, according to Pew Research Center studies. The speed of near-universal adoption is astounding, rivaling previous champions of such swift success such as radio and color TV.

Still, it’s worth lingering on just who is in that remaining 9 percent: It’s overwhelmingly those who are 65 or older, poor people and — particularly — homeless people. When benefits and services go digital, they pay the price. (My father, despite being an early computer adopter, refused to join the ranks of the cell-phoned because he was a privacy zealot and didn’t like the idea of being tethered to a tracking device. Also, he was just plain against.)

Many businesses have taken steps to accommodate the phone-less. There’s a way to get into Disneyland without a device, and Capital Bikeshare, the region’s bicycle rental program, allows users to pay cash at suburban kiosks. But while some state legislatures have considered requiring stores to make print copies of coupons available to those who can’t download digital ones, that movement has not caught on.

Americans are in a transitional state about when to require full access to the economy and when to let progress take its natural course. D.C. made it illegal just four years ago for any business to refuse to take cash — a strong step to open all retail outlets to unbanked and phone-less people. But now, after a period of rising thefts and other crimes, the council is considering an about-face: a bill that would let bars, restaurants and entertainment venues go cashless once again.

It will be at least another generation before it becomes reasonable for businesses and governments to assume they are serving everyone when they offer only digital access. In Throne’s case, out of more than 30,000 uses in the District through August, about 5 percent were by phone-less people. That portion jumped to 20 percent at their Columbia Heights location in an economically mixed neighborhood.

Heinzelman, Throne’s co-founder, told me she never wants technology to exclude people. “Our use of phones or tap cards to create technologically intermediated access provides greater access for all,” she said. If customers know the company can determine who’s leaving a mess, they’re far more likely to leave the place clean, meaning there will be fewer service interruptions for maintenance.

The technology is cool. But the homeless people I spoke to in Dupont Circle don’t have phones and don’t know about Throne cards. They just want a place to pee.

Sick of screens, families are giving kids old Walkmen and MP3 players

Families are turning to classics like cassettes and CDs to separate listening time from smartphones.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/12/21/kids-music-devices/





During her time as a high school teacher, Alison Pappavaselio says she saw firsthand the negative impacts of unfettered technology access. When the 35-year-old’s own children, now 4 and 6, showed an interest in music, she decided to do things differently.

Instead of a tablet, smartphone or even a smart speaker, Pappavaselio handed her older child a used Walkman she purchased on eBay and a handful of cassette tapes.

“I went a little bit more into the technology that I grew up with because it felt safe to me,” said Pappavaselio, who lives in Somerville, Massachusetts. “But you do have to teach them not to rip the tape out.”

Some modern parents are trying to give their children access to music without the temptations of a screen and internet access. Facing a lack of stand-alone options, they’re digging into their pasts and dusting off Walkmen, portable CD players and record players, along with their own dated album collections. Some are experimenting with voice-activated speakers such as Amazon’s Echo and Google Home, while others are relearning how to rip MP3s.

While some adults are just nostalgic for their own childhood experiences with music, others want to protect their children’s attention spans or minimize screen access before the teen years. According to Pew Research, the vast majority of teens are online every day, with 96 percent saying they check it daily. Almost half say they’re online constantly.

Even the way children discover music has changed. They still hear hits on the radio during car rides and get recommendations from friends, but they’re also picking up artists and songs from video games such as “Fortnight” or the algorithms in their music apps. A broad affection for ’80s music, however, has made their parents old collections cool again.

Where have all the iPods gone

The consolidation of technology into smartphones and tablets has made screens nearly impossible to avoid. They have become so powerful, they’ve made a number of stand-alone devices practically obsolete: home phones, alarm clocks, point-and-shoot cameras and voice recorders. And, of course, the dedicated portable music player. Apple discontinued traditional iPods in 2017, and most online music consumption has migrated from buying music files to streaming subscriptions — something Apple also sells.

The old devices still have some loyal users, but they take a little work to get running. More recent iPods can usually be fired up to work with iTunes, assuming you have all the relevant cables and ports on your computer. Some might need battery replacements, which you can get from a third party like iFixIt. There are also third-party apps for giving them a second life like Rockbox.





When Eileen Keribar İsvan’s 8-year-old daughter wanted a way to listen to music on the bus to school, she knew just where to look. İsvan’s mother had an old iRiver MP3 player that was up and running with a pair of fresh batteries.

“Part of the charm for me was giving her something that takes a little bit more effort,” said İsvan, a Montessori preschool teacher who lives in Istanbul. “And it’s a very sensorial experience, music. It’s better when you can isolate it from any distractions.”

Stores still sell some new digital music players, often for less than $50. Where do kids get MP3s in a post Napster world? You can still buy them, but at 50 cents to a dollar a piece, that can add up quickly. Multiple parents we spoke to use free tools that turn YouTube music videos into MP3s, or burn their own old CDs. Local libraries also have free options for downloading music files; all you need is your library card.

Even the companies trying to fill the gap left by the iPod are embracing old ways. The Yoto ($100) and Yoto Mini ($70) are simple music devices aimed at younger listeners. The devices are designed to look like retro toy radios. Children pop in small cards for the music they want, which you purchase separately — just like the old days. It also has a tiny screen that shows different images as the music plays, for a splash of screentime.

My daughter, who’s 4½, will just keep pressing the button so it stays illuminated,” says Pappavaselio.

The company recently issued a recall for its smaller Yoto Mini players sold between November 2021 and April 2024 as the batteries could overheat and even catch fire. But the company says old players can get a replacement battery and new devices are not at risk.

Another fresh option is the $115 Mighty, a digital music player that kids like because they load it up with a handpicked Spotify or Apple Music playlist instead of listening to their parents’ favorites from the 1900s. It can hold more than 1,000 songs and looks like an iPod Shuffle.

“To give your kids access to find their own taste in music is so important and was such a rite of passage,” says Rachel Childers, a musician with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. “Learning about yourself and what you’re drawn to is one of the cool things about growing up.”




Delaying screens but not forever

Screen time experts say that it’s not necessarily the amount of time a child spends on a screen that’s worrying, but the quality of that time. For example, a FaceTime chat is better than watching videos, and creating or reading are better than social media. Music falls on the positive end of the spectrum, but the experience is still different on tablet or phone.

For his two children, Mayfield has been experimenting with the right balance of control and freedom when it comes to technology. The family tried a Bark Phone and Mighty player but eventually let the 12-year-old be more in control of his own digital life. He’s now obsessed with Peter Gabriel and The Police.

Professor of music education Sarah Perry isn’t worried about her son, 11, looking at screens as he listens. Perry has cycled through all the classics, giving him a CD player and an old MP3 player. Now he’s on an old iPhone set up just for music where he likes to read lyrics, something not so different from how Perry used to listen.

“I remember sitting on the bus and listening on my headphones, and we’d bring the album cover and look at the lyrics and sing,” says Perry. “He’s doing the same thing, he’s just looking at it and scrolling through it.”