I mean you can doom scroll on a desktop or laptop machine as well.

Interestingly I find that while you can doom scroll on a laptop for me it doesn’t “work”. Perhaps because my laptop is work territory (both actual work and hobby) so I automatically don’t doom scroll there or maybe it’s just that lots of content is optimised for mobile and the experience is “better”.

I pretty much never use a phone, and all my screen time is a computer.

How do you even mindlessly watch youtube vid after youtube vid on such a tiny screen?

Also, I always carry my phone, I don't carry my laptop most of the time. Pulling out your non-work laptop in a boring meeting is also something you don't do.

And yet, here you are... ;-)

I got the new iPhone SE (small screen) in 2020 so I limit my screen time. It has worked but not as well as I'd hoped for.. maybe I need to go back to my razr.

Same here. I have an iPhone that I take with me maybe once a week, e.g. if I know I will need to call an Uber.

Exploring the option of getting a feature phone but do I really need to carry it?

I also tried a Linux phone but it wasn't very good in terms of usability and it soon became unusable due to hardware failure.

Out of interest, which Linux phone did you try?

PinePhone Convergence edition, I had an OK experience with Mobian but quite a bad experience with the default distro.

The HW failure was largely my fault because I didn't take good care of it.

The new PinePhone Pro looks very promising, looks like it can be a daily driver and I would like to try it out as soon as Mobian runs on it.

Edit: I'm not clear if Mobian runs on PinePhone Pro already? Looking at this link it seems it does https://blog.mobian.org/posts/2021/12/28/pinephone-pro/ but looking here, it seems we're not quite there yet: https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_Pro_Software_Releases...

most tools are multi-use. A smart phone is currently the best "convenient world remote control" you can have. It is also the best "distraction toy" you can have...

...self-discipline does not come easy, especially if supply and demand are strongly in favor of distraction...

Humanity survived without winter jackets until the Ice Age. Then all of humanity would have gone extinct without them.

Yeah but there is nothing on social media that you actually need to survive.

There are a lot of tools on life, that make it more convenient, that aren't required to survive. Like a hammer for example.

phones are pretty convenient though. even just having a camera and gps in one small device is nice.

For day to day activities? No, you probably don't need GPS and camera.

I gave up my smartphone a decade ago. It's only "inconvenient" when people expect me to have internet in my pocket.

I don't _need_ it but using a smartphone instead of navigating via a physical map and taking photos of memorable events throughout the day sure is nice.

The car has a map + navigation already, and I care very little about documenting events... although I do use the phone during tear downs for the purpose. Still the prime use of the (my) phone is actual phone calls.

Smartphones aren't only for social media.

Not sure that's the same thing.