Is the Problem Smartphones, or the Way We Use Them?
And is there anything we're willing to do about it?
Impaired judgement.
Diminished awareness.
Delayed reaction times.
Lower productivity.
Fractured relationships.
Compulsive use.
Social isolation.
Shallow interactions.
Anxiety.
Depression.
Sleep disturbances.
Chronic stress.
Radiation exposure.
Neck and back issues.
Suicide.
Death.
These are all symptoms of smartphone overuse. The ugly consequences many of us have come to accept. They’ve become the backdrop of modern life. Many of them are so common—and in some cases, so normalized—that we rarely stop to name them.
Lately I’ve been wondering: what’s the real problem here? Is it the technology itself, or is the smartphone just a mirror, reflecting something deeper back at us? Are we blaming the wrong thing for our distraction?
I’ve been chewing on this question for the last few days after reading a piece by my friend and former colleague Rachel Hamlin, who recently published her first post on Substack. It’s a sharp, vulnerable account of clawing her way out of phone addiction. She begins with a story from a flight, describing the moment everything clicked.
“When the seatbelt sign went off, I stood in the aisle (because I like standing) and saw row upon row of humans identically, unnaturally hunched with necks over phones.
It was like an infinite mirror. You know that phenomenon? Where I’d get my hair cut in the mall as a kid, one mirror faced another and my reflection repeated without end.
This was just as trippy. Dozens of humans, mirroring one another.
Under the spell of their devices.
Something landed then, deep in my cognition.
The humans morphed into raw data—light, color, shapes and edges—hit my retinas and spat out an impression in my mind of dozens of people smoking cigarettes.
I might as well have been standing in a plane full of smoke, because in that moment, I saw the level of addiction at play and it made me sick.”
I could envision exactly what she described…the collective trance…the smoke cloud…a room full of addicts, high on distraction.
My favorite definition of addiction, which I believe was coined by Dr. Anna Lembke, is this: a progressive narrowing of that which brings us pleasure.
And smartphones—whether we admit it or not—bring us pleasure, even when the pleasure is shallow, compulsive or harmful.
Survey data suggests that Americans check their cell phones between 144 and 205 times a day. And that’s tracking with what I see every day a continent away, in Florence: people on buses locked into screens, families sitting silently in restaurants, people scrolling as they step into intersections.
Most of that time isn’t productive. It’s a form of escape. Entertainment. Social media. Shopping. Think YouTube and Netflix. TikTok and Instagram. Amazon and Temu. While ChatGPT is the most downloaded app of the year, the rest of the top 10 are all variations of messaging, social, shopping and video.
I used to tell myself I was staying informed and connected, and my favorite line, being productive. But most of the time I was just scrolling, killing time, numbing out. So I believe the real issue isn’t just the phone in our pocket. It’s the discomfort we’re trying to avoid every time we reach for it. So in that sense, this isn’t just a technology problem. It’s a human one.
I smoked a pack of Kamel Red Lights a day for 12 years. I knew the risks and exactly what I was doing, and continued to do it anyway.
Smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and may complicate pregnancy.
Quitting smoking now greatly reduces serious risks to your health.
Smoking kills.
None of that stopped me. Not the warnings on the packs, not my parents, not any girlfriend, no one. Smoking gave me something I thought I needed: a dopamine hit when I was bored or stressed or celebrating. There was the ritual of it. There was a comfort to it. The feeling of the filter between my fingers, the pack smacked against my wrist, the flick of the lighter. It felt so damn good, even when I knew it wasn’t.
Sort of like the way my smartphone used to feel in my pocket, just knowing it was there. The way it fit into the palm of my hand. The swipe, the tap, the buzz. It was so familiar. It gave me control (or the illusion of it). It gave me a hit of dopamine.
Here’s a crazy idea: what if phones came with warning labels, too?
Not the sleek, all-white boxes with clean logos. But graphic labels—like cigarette cartons. Imagine smartphone boxes wrapped in images like these:
A totaled car with an ambulance nearby and a body draped in a white cloth.
A distracted walker, seconds away from being flattened by a car, head down, scrolling.
A hunched over teen with red eyes and a warped neck.
A man walking off a cliff, glued to his screen.
A subway rider reaching for a dropped smartphone as a train approaches.
Would it do anything? Would it prompt people to become more self aware—and to even change their behavior? I don’t know. This piece of technology is such a powerful thing.
About a decade ago, in my early years of fatherhood, I worked for a prominent ad agency in Chicago. My client was Altria, the makers of Philip Morris cigarettes. Later, I took another agency job in San Francisco helping market Call of Duty for Activision.
Cigarettes and video games. Two of the most addictive products on the market.
I learned how to frame the narrative, how products were made to feel aspirational, personal. How to design for dopamine. Build systems that reward repetition. Make the friction so low that quitting feels harder than continuing. Sound familiar?
Smartphones—and more specifically, the apps on them—follow the same formula.
Pull to refresh. Infinite scroll. Push notifications. Algorithmic rewards. These aren’t conveniences. They’re behavioral design features, modeled on the same principles that drive slot machines and video games and cigarettes.
So if these systems are designed to addict us, then what responsibility do we have as users, creators, parents, policymakers and even big tech?
Because I have zero to little faith the tech industry will come forward and own this mess they’ve created, I believe they need to be held accountable for this. Remember, they’re about profits, not people. But while big tech may have created the problem, we as adults—especially parents, grandparents and anyone influential to children—need to take responsibility for it. We need to hold ourselves accountable and stop pretending that change doesn’t begin with us, in our own households and communities.
Either we change or we continue to turn a blind eye to the crash happening right in front of us.
I hear regularly now, from people back in the U.S. and here in Italy, about children in full-blown smartphone addiction. I’m not talking about kids who can’t get off Roblox. I mean kids who refuse to leave their home during the summertime. Kids who have been sent to rehab centers and outpatient programs because their situations have become so dire.
A progressive narrowing of that which brings us pleasure.
I’ll be sharing more stories every Sunday — the highs, the screw-ups, the awkward new routines — as I adjust to life with a flip phone. If you’re wondering what it’s like to live slower, simpler, and maybe even saner, stick around.