I sat down at my desktop with my coffee. The first thing I did was fire up Unity and Visual Studio to continue some work on learning about networked multiplayer games. I spent about 2 hours reading API documentation and prototyping different things. I came away feeling like I had learned something and was making progress on a thing I care about.

After that I picked up my phone. I spent an hour scrolling through different news sites and jumping between apps. I came away feeling depressed, anxious, and like I just wasted an hour of my life on meaningless information consumption.

I’m sure some people have the same experience on a desktop/laptop and others can use their phone for creative endeavors, but for me, personally, the differences in experience between the two environments is quite stark.