> And I'm damn proud of my kids now. They're the ones pointing out how their high-school is taken over by mobile-phone-zombies, utterly un-interesting and useless peers.

When I was in high school I thought my peers ware un-interesting and useless too. :D

I've been struggling, lately, to figure out a way to be able to tell "different" from "worse."

Shit we did, because we had nothing better to do: * drive around racing off stop lights. If this is reduced these days, that's probably good, since cars are way more powerful. * drive around aimlessly listening to music * toilet paper houses and other random vandalism * go to movies * watch tv * play video games * try to get laid * light random things on fire * screw around with computers (not in a particularly productive "learn to program" way - just learning a ton about soon-to-be-obsolete windows 9x maintenance and customization) * chained three-way phone calls to get a big group conversation going * watching music videos was pretty big

How much of that is really any better than dicking around on Snapchat, iMesssage, GroupMe, or whatever?

Note that I was both unproductive myself and disdainful of other teens. :)