Comment by greggsy
6 hours ago
Believe it or not many people actually read news and books on their phones.
I think there a lot of survivorship bias in this observation, where the thing you’re most likely to see people watching is the thing that’s most flashy.
Yes and public transport isn't exactly a great environment for interacting with your friends - either its already loud or you're going to annoy other passengers.
A phone is a pretty bad proxy for what someone is actually doing with their attention
I kind of agree, but I will push back just to work through my conflicted feelings. In America 50% of people basically can't read. I think the official stat is 48% read at or BELOW a 6th grade level. The average American reads 0 books a year, shamefully myself included. Especially post covid, there is a serious degradation in social skills and using a phone instantly makes people more comfortable and less likely to socialize. The mobile gaming industry is 148B this year.
All that is to say, I don't think this forum is indicative of wider behavior AND smart people definitely inflate the value of "work" and "productivity" they do on their phone. We will never know unless we get Apple data, but I suspect a phone might be like 90% entertainment and 5% communication for most people. Maybe 5% is semi-productive work email, reading an article, etc.
I guess I am not sure if it matters where their attention goes. Although, it might be a bit of selective memory in how social people were before phones.