MLB.com Screenshot: Chris Matyszczyk/CNET

Priorities have changed over the last few years.

There was a time when you went to a baseball game, you bought beer and a hot dog and you watched the game, while chatting to your friends.

These days, though, there are higher demands to fulfill. You have to take photographs and share them with everyone. You have to pull out your iPad, so that you can have your own personal view of the stats and Bar Refaeli's latest modeling assignments.

You also have to pull out your phone and log onto Facebook.

This may, however, involve you in not paying attention to the game. So much so that, as occurred to San Diego Padres fan (or perhaps mere visitor to the stadium) Travis Decker, you get smacked in the shoulder by a foul ball.

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I am grateful to Yahoo's The Post Game for discovering this fine piece of footage, one that puts the entire social-networking landscape in harsh relief.

"I was sitting there looking at my telephone. I was trying to post onto Facebook to say that I was here at the ballpark and check-in, " Decker told MLB.com.

Yes, he was being a thoroughly modern man.

Still, Decker offered a warning to everyone who was might be tempted to text while watching a game. Although, to be fair, he wasn't actually watching the game.

There will be those churlish few who will suggest that no one watches the Padres when they're at the game, because the Padres are simply not very good.

I will suggest that the Padres' Will Venable, who struck the fateful ball, saw what Decker was doing and thought to himself: "That's a clown check-in, bro'."