A few weeks ago at Disneyland, I saw one of the scariest things that I ever have seen in a theme park.
It was not an injury accident, thank goodness. Nor was it a fight. It wasn’t a planned haunt scare, either. On Pirates of the Caribbean, I sat behind a person who spent the entire ride on her phone’s Instagram app.
Have we reached the point where theme park guests would rather scroll their social media than look up to take in one of the greatest dark ride attractions ever made? Apparently so. While this was the worst example yet for me, it hardly was the first time that I have seen people choose their phones over the sights around them in a park. That should terrify anyone who works in the multibillion-dollar theme park industry.
Theme parks have had to compete with other forms of entertainment media ever since Walt Disney opened his Magic Kingdom in 1955. But no other entertainment medium has seemed to clutch people in such an addictive hold as today’s social media.
I know that this issue is being litigated, but as someone who has been developing websites and apps for decades now, I believe that many social media services are engineered to be addictive for users. It’s working. One example: I’ve lost count of the number of times that I have had wait at stoplights for the driver ahead of me to look up from a phone and notice that the light has turned green. That rarely happened before algorithmic social media’s rise a decade ago.
The way to fight social media addiction is with real-life human connection. Theme parks like Disneyland are uniquely positioned to deliver the immersive, human-driven experiences that can continue to engage fans even in the age of social media. Live theater, character meets, thrill rides, fantastical play areas, visually stunning attractions with quick-witted hosts — those are the experiences that parks can offer fans who want something more than what they can find on a screen.
But what happens when people no longer want anything more than what vertical video shorts offer? That’s the challenge that Disney needs to address. Unfortunately, Disney does not make it easy to leave your phone behind and enjoy a day offline. Magic Key passes are part of the app now, as are Lightning Lanes, dining reservations and mobile ordering at many restaurants.
Disney promotes the fact that its theme parks are the country’s top locations for Instagram posts and encourages its guests to live their Disney experience online. That’s great promotion for the parks — after all, you have to meet potential customers where they are. But if Disneyland’s new main selling point is being a popular setting for social media use, I fear for the future of the parks.
I don’t want to live life through a screen. I hope that someone at Disney is advocating for people like me, who feel the same. Because the more a space is filled with people glued to their phones, the less I want to spend my time there.