I for one love my smartphone. I am not glued to it like my 20-something niece is but I find it incredibly useful. Apple Pay, Samsung pay and Google pay are worlds more secure than a straight credit card transaction at a terminal, navigation, instant communication to someone, etc.

Yes we got by without these things 50 years ago but why should I want to get along without them now. I don't want to go back to the candle when we ave LED lighting.

Yes, smartphones have caused, or are causing some social issues but not sure what can be done about that.

Agreed - nice idea. Many of the issues surrounding mobile phone use were first investigated by Finnish (and Japanese) sociologists. I remember one saying that in Finland they had rules at parties where all the mobile phones were lined up on the mantle-piece or equivalent and they weren't allowed to touch them... The dead zone is the technological equivalent I guess... :-)

While I don't think its the new security blanket, I think its more accurate to call it the new opiate, or the new Pavlov's bell.

I love this idea. Unfortunately, taking some people there would ruin one's meal as they'd spend the entire time bitching about the lack of "bars".

A wee bit of logical deduction here results in this conclusion ... If smartphones are security blankies or opiates, we've all been sitting around sucking our thumbs for some time now since smartphones are essentially just portable mini PCs with a wifi/cell toggle.

I think that's misleading. Internally a smartphone is a computer but the user interface is quite different and it is that interface which is so addictive.

Perhaps, or maybe it is the idea of being connected that is so addicting? Might be different for different folks - my niece (college age) is on her phone more than any other activity during the day. I am not, but still find myself picking it up and looking at it - checking mail, news, etc.

It is indeed an interesting phenomenon.

These things are designed to be addictive, just like fixed-odds betting terminals. After all, when you are online with your phone, you are probably using social media and giving them loads of useful information about your actions which they can sell to advertisers. When your phone is switched off, you're no use to them.

True - I am an enigma amongst the average cell phone user however: I loathe social media.

I agree with Hazel. They are designed to be addictive. I love ChuangTzu's comment! Pavlov and opiate... exactly!

That they are designed to be addictive is no secret. It is rather visible and it is sad to see the afflicted individuals. You can't attend any public space without dodging at least one phone zombie every few minutes.

In a little bigger picture, there are many repercussions which range from kids not entering school with either adequate musculature or fine motor skills enough to partipate properly all the way to a statistically significant increase drownings due to parents playing with their phones while their kids are in the water. The phones are, as mentioned, pavlovian and training people to respond to minimal stimuli. I think that also damages the cognitive abilities of the younger victims. I already see young people that can't even count running cash registers.

However, at scale, this addictiveness has follow on effects for our future generations' ability to take the reins when it is their time to do so. Eben Moglen addresses that a bit in a talk from much earlier this year:

re:publica 2019 - Eben Moglen: Why Freedom of Thought Requires Attention

Bringing it back to the forum's topics, you see this in many web sites. All too many are designed around "engagement" which is the polar opposite of "usability". The software should get out of the way and stay out of the way and the human must be in charge at all times. "Engagement" turns that on its head. We as a societ need to push back. Passivity will only bring about end things through trained ineptitude and the proliferation of dead wood.

Idiots are idiots. The smart phone is no more guilty6 of causing idiots than the television, the book or matches.
I also hate this idea that "people talked to each other before...". No. they did not. People who wanted to talk to one another talked to one another, no everybody wanted to talk. If anything new communications platforms aremaking it easier to feel connected to people how would otherwise seem a wolrd away, from grandparents seeing their grandchildred a few hours journey away grow up to husbands and wwivesr of those deployed abroad.
Of course, some imbeciles use mobile phones to take part in idiotic popularity contests but one only has to look back at, for example, movies about schools in the last century to see that imbeciles just did that face-to-face with a smaller audience back then.

Well said 273 - perhaps now that we are globally connected, the existence of idiots appears to be increasing when it is really just the normal amount of them; we just hear more from them because of global communications...personally, I think the number of idiots is increasing but that's just a theory and could tied to the population increase in the same ratio as it always was...

Idiots are a separate matter from the addiction factor. Screen damage is already affecting college level people. The younger you measure, the worse it is. Check with some of the remaining older (and younger) teachers about what kids are like entering the classes. Stunting is more or less permanent when the excessive exposure occurs in the early years. In certain countries, though, not all of that is due to "smart" phones, some is due to kids not being allowed outside.

The software in the phones adapts and is adapted to optimize "engagement", meaning keeping the attention and mindshare of the mark. These devices are unique from previous technologies and trends in that they are both highly invasive and always on. It appears that they are causing mind damage to a few generations. This is an offshoot of the concept that education is an investment, one which short cuts do not pay off, rather the opposite. If people are "engaged" with programs on the "smart" phones, they are not growing, learning, or in any way productive.

While the term "addiction" has taken on pejorative connotations it really just defines a compulsion to repetition even though if you look up a definition it is very specifically been reduced to chemical dependency of a destructive sort. The line gets drawn between negative and other sorts of repetitive behavior strictly on emotional terms. For exampler I am diabetic and if I don't take something to manage my blood sugar I will die. There is no emotional attachment other than a vague forboding but it is a form of addiction that substantially alters my life, my motivations and my behavior. I have always liked walking but as soon as I could drive I loved driving and cars so much that for a few years I would just drive, just to drive. That got increased and extended with my first motorcycle. It is possible to avoid that sort of direct addiction by moving to some cities where it is trivial to walk to a Metro terminal, but the addiction to travel is real.

I don't see addiction of a general nature as inherently bipolar good or bad. In a very meaningful way we are addicted to Air, Water, and Food, and it should be obvious those, especially food perhaps, can drive some people into negative even destructive behavior and some others will use that to their monetary advantage with no concern for those that fall prey. If this wasn't true there would be no term such as "Comfort Food".

Sugar is a powerful example responsible for ruined lives and caused millions of deaths but few here chime in to compare sugar to opiates or childish behavior. I submit that even abstract things can be addictive such as cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias. Those too can be both good and bad but ultimately it's not the things but how we choose to use them. Learning self-discipline is an integral and important part of growing up. If you "let your garden go" it will go wild and cease to be a garden of anything but weeds. We all must learn to tend the gardens we need most and communication is a big one, maybe even bigger than transportation.