There’s no app for that.

By now, I hope you've all seen the video that has probably been played out off-camera numerous times. If not, then check it out. You’ll see a group of local Mission District teenagers fending off a group of white tech workers from a popular soccer field. The adults had reserved the field to play in a league for an hour, and the teens were miffed that they had the audacity to try and kick them off a field that traditionally serves as a pickup hotspot.

As usual, your typical commentary from sites like ValleyWag came about, criticizing the “tech bro” archetype, their entitlement, and the greater effects of gentrification on an entrenched community. It’s standard fare at this point, given the country’s current economic, social and political juncture and the inevitable inequality dialogue hanging over us. That said, I could give a shit about those. What bothers me most about this conflict is the idea that one can schedule and pay for something as innocuous as soccer.

As an urban kid, and even today as an adult, you don’t “reserve” the park to play basketball or any sport. There isn't an online form. There’s no stringent set of protocols or a set time wen certain people are allowed to play. The only rule is that you go to the courts or field with your ball and friends, you call next, and you wait your turn to get on. Once you get on, if you win, you keep playing; if you lose, you get off and wait for another team to be picked. It’s that simple. The overwhelming current of our society at the said juncture emphasizes this need for structure in the form of apps, applications, and other forms of identification and validation. While order is needed for many things, it’s not a necessity for fun.

Today, there are hundreds of apps for ‘local discovery’ and ‘meeting with friends’ or ‘reserving a table at the hottest spots’. There’s a point at which the app economy and its offshoots are too far-reaching. Scheduling time on a field seems a bit disingenuous if you can’t walk up to it, call ‘next’ and play with the people already there. Using apps to discover a new restaurant or store is pointless if you’re unable to lose yourself in a neighborhood for a few hours to discover it yourself. What have we become when we need an app for something that our elders and ancestors were able to do with their mouths and feet?

It’s not so much that I’m against using Google Maps if I’m helplessly lost in Brooklyn or hailing a cab with Uber when I’m in a rush. It’s that much of this technology is serving to sever us from the human connections and experiences that make something like playing pickup soccer fun. What was once a conversation with a living, breathing human being has become validation from a cold piece of plastic and metal, and an argument between children and adults who couldn’t agree on how to share a field. If we need an online application to tell us how to do that, gentrification is the last of our concerns. We should learn to be humans again, not humans with smartphones. There’s no app for that.