Yeah; this all rings pretty sound to me. I've worked with 14-17 year olds most of my adult life and everything comes down to how the kid does in their "home" environment. More specifically, how their closest people treat them, rather than any action they are taking.
Kids - even 17 year olds - are infantalized and treated as if they don't have anything to contribute. They are "supposed" to just do what they are told and follow a "normal" path of going to school and then getting a job and working. A school where they aren't allowed to learn about what they are interested in, and can only learn the government-mandated testable knowledge. A job that will force them to wake up early and commute late and leave them with no time or energy to engage in the hobbies that they never actually cultivated because doing metalworking is too loud and doing programming is wasting time on a computer and flight training is too expensive and, and, and, and...
The amount of success I've had just VALIDATING kids is fucking incredible. Talk to them as if their idea is worth hearing, and then ask them questions that make them challenge their own ideas. Whether it's about a project they think would be cool, or about how they feel about something that happened with their parents. When they can devote time to think about it, without feeling like discussing it is an attack on anyone or an imposition to the listener - they sort shit out just like anyone else.
And whenever I find myself kind of marveling at - say - an 11 year old speaking with what feels like emotional intelligence beyond their years, I remember that in the early 1900s, 11 year old's might have been fucking floor managers at a textile industry, or pickaxe-swinging coal miners. Kids are entirely capable at 11 years old and it only comes out if you engage them in ways that hone that capability. Which should obviously NEVER be forced or coerced labor. But you can talk to them like they are adults.
In any case, I've been mentoring kids since before cell phones and not a damn thing has changed. If the kid's distracted, you don't need to worry about what is able to distract them - you need to worry about why they were bored enough (or preoccupied) to get distracted in the first place. And that's really the heart of the whole thing: people really want for the kids or the "mentally infirm" or the OTHER to have to do better when the simple truth is that the person needs to be doing better. The parent, the teacher, the mentor, the friend; they have to be meeting the HUMAN BEING (who happens to be a child) at their level rather than feeling disappointed that the kid didn't meet them at some other level.