Yes they were really. It really was, literally, the thing in life I like to do the most. I live to travel and see new places, it's the favorite activity I ever engage in.
I just disagree with this whole idea that there HAS to be some "missing hole" that phones fill. These apps are addictive, that's not really a secret they are designed to be by teams of brilliant people.
It's possible that many heroin addicts have "holes" in their life that they fill, but it's also pretty much a certainty that if you take a random person and unwittingly feed them heroin for awhile telling them it's harmless, they're going to have withdrawal symptoms if they stop.
I'm aware of the Rat Park study and it's interesting but it's pretty isolated and hasn't been replicated, and either way it's just one intriguing counterpoint, not dispositive.
It's often a misconception that 12 step programs talk about getting to "root causes" first. They do, to some extent, but they always focus immediately and completely on total abstinence until that has been achieved.
Then, the "root causes" stuff is really better described as picking up the pieces of a broken life, and specifically a ton of broken relationships, since the one thing all addicts have in common is a large number of close relationships with people that they have ruined.
Sobriety in that context really isn't about getting to and fixing "root causes" to be honest. It's more about setting up a set of current habits, and social support, that are based around non addictive behaviors.