Are smartphones serving as adult pacifiers?
The analogy to pacifiers may be overly condescending (equating adults to children), but in general I have adopted the view that smartphone usage in public is essentially second-hand smoke, and that hopefully within the next 1-2 decades the public will finally begin to recognize this as widespread addiction and begin setting some limits.<p>I got into computers when I was in early elementary school, and that began my track toward exploration and software development. There&#x27;s no doubt that my mom&#x27;s worries of me being addicted to the computer were absolutely true - entire summers were spent on the computer.<p>What&#x27;s different about computer addiction and smartphone addiction is that computer usage is more limited in where you can do it. My computer-addicted young self would not have been able to whip out a desktop computer at a restaurant, barbershop, or waiting in line to pick up an order. But with smartphones essentially being &quot;pocket computers&quot;, people can use them anywhere - even driving.<p>I do believe in personal choice, so I don&#x27;t want to be heavy handed, but I imagine our society will need to grapple with this problem. I see couples on dates with each other in restaurants, both on their phones nearly the entire time scrolling through endless feeds. I watch sports events where any small break in play people need to pull out their phones. There is no presence anymore, and public space (along with suburbanization) has rapidly eroded over the past 10-15 years since smartphones were invented. Now commercials for phones&#x2F;5G normalize the idea that you should be able to download&#x2F;stream a movie on your phone walking down a sidewalk.<p>There&#x27;s a balance that needs to be struck here, and it&#x27;s going to be difficult to reach because we&#x27;re still relatively in the infancy of these fancy electronic gadgets. Particularly in the US where individualism and personal choice is so deeply part of our culture, it will be difficult to restore the public space so that we can come to expect if you go out in public, people are actually... present and there. But somehow we eventually came to the same conclusion with banning smoking in restaurants et. al.