I know students who have written essays, put together presentations, etc solely on their phones.

If you really believe that the only thing “younger generations” do is post on social media, I suggest you spend more time around high schoolers (for example), particularly those with limited financial means.

Limited financial means is the key here. A decent smartphone costs as much as a lower-end computer; for kids, there's a good chance it was either-or proposition in terms of which device they get to own (instead of sharing with family).

Reminds me of a friend who, few years ago, was a teenager of limited financial means. He earned his first real $50 through a phone. His laptop broke, and he didn't have anyone to borrow one from in time, so he ssh'd into a remote machine from his phone and did the work (some data wrangling task) this way. Where there's a will, there's a way.

But still, that in no way suggests phones are good at text editing or productive work. They're capable enough, if you have lots of will and no other option.

I can’t imagine writing something much more substantial than a couple of paragraphs. Typing is fine, but editing is so slow without a mouse.

Man, imagine what editing was like in the typewriter era! I assure you, I got good at not needing as much editing. Two drafts and done.

Until Mike Nesmith's mother changed the world :) But even then, trying to realign using that red line hovering half an inch off the surface of the paper made the mistakes obvious :/

Here, how a kid in Africa used a Nokia feature phone doing T9 typing, before he could eventually get a job doing Android development.

https://hanselminutes.com/615/developing-on-not-for-a-nokia-...

I phrased my comment specifically trying to avoid sounding like I was saying that's the only thing they do. Guess I didn't do it right.

It's awesome that those with limited funds can still get stuff done, and phones are great for consuming information, but I don't think there's much argument against the efficiency gain that hardware keyboards, mice and larger screens with multiple windows give when you get into things that require fine tuning and multi-tasking like drawing, coding and video editing.

It read fine to me. I didn't read any implication that young people don't do anything more complicated than social media posts - only that when do they could use a larger device.

(sorry I know posts like this don't make interesting reading, I just know how frustrating it can be when you put effort into writing something to avoid being misunderstood but still get taken the wrong way... so wanted to point out that at least for this reader the negative connotation was not there)

What were the titles of those essays? I'm curious what people are writing about.

One of my students submitted an essay today entitled "On 'Democracy' and How Humans Lie" which was written entirely on their phone about inequality in the US