It’s fascinating to track which cultures will be absolutely annihilated by the introduction of endless entertainment in a rectangle. (Annihilated in the demographic sense).
Smartphones are extremely powerful, but I strongly feel they shouldn't be in the hands of children at least until their adolescence - that way some amount of creativity is forced.
Ironically, Steve Jobs was himself a major proponent of how boredom begets curiosity and creativity.
The subcultures have already formed, died out, and formed into new subcultures multiple times already.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_and_Native_Americans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Forty-Three_G...
It's not the fault of availability of McDonalds that a person chooses to destroy their health eating only burgers, fries and Coke. Healthy options still exist, just that some people choose not to use them.
So why do people choose endless entertainment instead of the "healthy options"?
You are free to do whatever you desire. But you are not free to choose your desires.
Couldn't be more false.
it takes willpower, but it is possible to change. what makes changing difficult is lack of experience. it is difficult to choose what we don't know, and negative experiences push you away from trying something that everyone says is good but that you only had bad experiences with.
like if you had a bad experience making friends growing up then you will shy away from trying to make friends until you either push yourself to try anyways, or you make some friends by chance and realize that it is a good experience after all. the same goes for food, social media, and everything else.
Do you know how advertising works? McDonald's have spent an unimaginable amount of money to sway people's choices and absolutely need to share in the blame for the result of those actions.
[0] https://washingtonmorning.com/2025/06/19/how-differently-tik...
I see plenty of parents (even amongst Chinese families) handing a smartphone to their kids to essentially sedate them instead of engaging with them.
Honor of Kings, Arena of Valor, and MLBB have similar dopamine rush cycles.
Heck, even a bland, aggravating, obnoxious, and stick-up-their-butt social media site like HN can induce similar cycles.