Smartphones: A bicycle for the mind or fast food?

I've seen a lot of commentary online recently related to this topic and definitely think it will be an upcoming trend. I think it's interesting how the author of this article mentioned LLMs. We all know that we have some kind of smartphone addiction, but I've never considered how humanity could potentially become "addicted" to LLMs in the same sense we are addicted to our smartphones.

my wife is a teacher and has shared anecdotally it feels like kids' attention spans are way worse recently, even in 2nd and 3rd grade. Reminds me of this tweet: https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1734615155009376333

i does feel like there's a shift happening — people waking up to the addiction. I've been thinking of going full on "dumb phone" but i rely on my phone so much for work, the only thing that seems to work is blocking social media usage and doom scrolling.

Curious whether folks here think there is a real problem with current device use?

Or if the issue is but a rehashing of age-old debates about personal preferences/taste (De gustibus non disputandum est)