[protonimitate]

Not Op - but for me, no.

When smartphone 'addiction' starts getting in the way of day-to-day responsibilities and personal health then we can talk about ways to curb smart phone addiction.

Maybe for others its different, but the only time I have the 'tick' is when I'm otherwise unoccupied - watching boring tv, riding on public transit, or otherwise killing time. Could you replace that with more beneficial ways to pass time? Sure. But to me the 'smart phone addiction' craze is the same thing as 'tv rots your brain'. Overstated and not really an issue imo.

And on the point of 'motivated by for-profit entities', how many aspects of your life are not in the same bucket?

[gcp123]

In the western world at least, we're surrounded by experiences provided by for-profit entities, but very few of them profit from maximizing our attention on their product like app-makers and social media do. They don't create products that are designed to monopolize our attention. Check out the book Attention Merchants or check out humanetech.com.

Filling every idle moment of your life with apps on a screen is actually keeping you from being with yourself. Tech has gone through three stages:

1. Tech that insulates us from the harshness of nature in order to promote our survival (clothing, heat, etc).

2. Tech that enhances/automates our abilities for productivity and convenience (telecom, industrial tech, etc).

3. Tech that distracts us from the human condition (social media, television, never-ending games, etc).

I used to be like you, thinking the tech in my life was only in service of my best interests, but I had a change of heart. Wrote about it here: https://medium.com/@gcpofnyc/seeking-a-healthier-relationshi...

[ben_jones]

What about staring at a bright screen 3 inches from your face before bed every night?