pretty optimistic review of the power of the individual/mind contra the really fine-tuned algorithms of engagement. the hook is the “filling bits of (idle) time.” the accounting when all the filling of bits of time is done seems to add up to a huge sum. the extra time definitely would have been borrowed (read: stolen) from somewhere.

I agree that algorithmic feeds and even just having endless distractions in a hip pocket are terribly unhealthy. I thinks its wise to be very mindful with both and that they can quietly steal from other experiences that one might prefer in hindsight.

But I don't have a way to square that perspective with what the original commenter suggested about "psychological obliteration" and "addiction akin to gambling or heroin"

People won't even pay for most of these pocket distractions. They're clearly not consuming or addictive in the same way as those others things, where people often make explicit wantonly destructive choices in service to their addiction.

And realistically, that they're a different kind of risk with a different kind of impact may make them even more dangerous from a health-of-society perspective, because we don't have great cultural insight or hygeine practices to deal with them. If we want to change that, we need to recognize that they don't represent the same danger we're used to.

So I'm not dismissing that they're bad. I'm just dismissing the original commenters' deeply strained and distracting characterization.