There is nothing "smartphone" about games. A board game, a video game, or even sports is a game that is fun and engaging that anyone can do together, as is any smartphone game.
There is nothing "smartphone" about the news or social media or email. These have all been here, and just moving them to our pockets alone can't be that damaging.
And there is nothing "smartphone" about ads or paid content or even facebook likes.
What's "smartphone" is the immediacy and the frequency of the connectivity. It's the bond that is stronger -- and hence the more of us more strongly bound to our phones.
But this alone can't be damaging. It's just amazing. What is damaging are the businesses, and people mind you, that abuse this bond. Ourselves included.
So what we really have is a new tool that just gives us more of what we want faster.
Of course this is game changing. Of course this is dangerous. But whether we let this damage us is still a choice. And at the end of the day, a lot of it is just people abusing and damaging people. It's clear we can't help ourselves. But we can also help ourselves, which is what most of these articles appear to be about.
The point being, demonizing smartphones is just shifting blame. Getting rid of them is getting rid of the problem, not finding a solution. With the overarching point being, they themselves are not that dangerous.
They can't be.
Or maybe I'm still missing something...