[lapcat]

> To me "dopamine addiction" feels a bit of a figure of speech to make people quickly understand and relate to the problems

I agree. I think the key point from the article is this: "they behave like addicts". The "dopamine" part is inessential to the diagnosis. Smartphones are like a drug, similar to or analogous to a drug. If they were literally a drug, causing overt physical withdrawal symptoms, then we might have taken the problem more seriously already.