If you think people used to willingly stare off into the distance before smartphones, my dad told me he had this psychology assignment when he was in college in the 80s which was basically
Go to a restaraunt by yourself and eat a meal without a newspaper or journal or anything else to keep you occupied and then write a report about it
Which tells me that this was a way for a professor to inflict psychological torture on their students and that people used to bring little things with them to keep them entertained. Shown by those old pictures of everyone in a trolley reading a newspaper with one hand.
Frankly I think that the human brain has been craving smart phone forever. Perhaps we use it too much at times but if this was 1985 we also wouldn’t be talking to people. We’d just be looking at newspaper or drawing stuff on notepad instead. And the old people would all be shaking their fists about how kids spend too much time looking at that damn TV because yes this discourse has been going on long before smart phone
i bet cavemen were feeling this too. grug eating mammoth bone stew all alone and looking at a bug he put in a cup for this exact purpose
The human brain has the capacity to store information for later
This is why I never got that whole kids and their phones thing because like...so what? Yeah anyone can eat a meal without watching something, but why would you want to? You can even eat with other people, watch something, and STILL have meaningful conversations with them!
Its literally just an extra little treat for your day, you're already spending time enjoying a meal and savoring food, why not watch a show or video?
