Further, are you sure that "entertains me when I'm bored" represents a benefit? I think boredom serves a useful purpose, and quelling it with empty activity might defeat that purpose.
I took that as a generalization, but maybe they did mean in their specific life, rather than every human's life.
> Further, are you sure that "entertains me when I'm bored" represents a benefit?
I do, sometimes I'm bored and want to be productive, sometimes I want to be unproductive. The phone is for the latter. If I didn't have it, I wouldn't be productive, I'd just be feeling bad.
Yes, it's something I can do in my life specifically. I recognize not everyone is able to do it depending on work (I couldn't drive for Uber/Lyft/[insert food delivery service of the week here] with a KaiOS device, but neither am I trying to do that), and there are some downsides in terms of having to carry separate devices for other functions (typically a pocket camera for photos, and CDs in the car for audiobooks), but they're nothing I find particularly objectionable.
The reality is that I'm just dropping back to a 1990s or early 2000s way of doing things, which I lived through, and find a better way of handling things than a smartphone-mediated-always-on world that's become the default - not because people have thought through it and want it, but because it's the most profitable set of defaults to the tech companies and app vendors involved.
> The phone is for the latter. If I didn't have it, I wouldn't be productive, I'd just be feeling bad.
I find boredom quite useful. I typically have a paper notebook and pencil in my pocket anymore for those times.