[gonzo41]

My feelies (feelings i have that i will now pass along like they were facts) tell me that smart phones help people to avoid thinking about hard things. http://imgur.com/gallery/AD84Z6V They help in the above as a distraction.

Outside of doing my banking, my smart phone does not help. its small and expensive, brittle, distracting. It exposes a lot of information about me externally. And people expect me to be available because of it.

I switch to a feature phone a while back for simple robustness. Now when i want to know the weather I just look up.

The HCI practitioners learned all their tricks from the gambling industry. Poker machines and smart phones are really similar in the reward cycle that the trap you in.