[solveit]

>My 6 y/o nephew will totally tune out the world if you let him play Angry Birds, ignoring his parents until someone physically removes the screen from his hands. That's harmful.

> I hosted a field trip for pre-teen middle schoolers and in our downtime between activities there was zero social interaction because they all buried their heads in their phones (okay, I did observe one student ask another for a charger). That's harmful.

I did the exact same thing with books and nobody said it was harmful. To the contrary, I was mostly praised. I'm not saying it wasn't harmful, it clearly was in some respects. But the benefits outweighed the costs and everybody could see that. Why can't we do the same with phones?

[throwaway9d0291]

Books have many clear benefits, like generally increasing reading and writing ability and in particular, expanding vocabulary.

What are the benefits of extended phone use?

I'm not saying there are none but I'm hard pressed to think of a way staring into a phone benefits me. 90% of the time I and the people around me seem to be consuming drivel on social media (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit) which usually has none of the benefits of books and especially for young people, seems to have very serious downsides, like depression and a feeling of social isolation.