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Comment by hightrix | Hacker News Reader

Screens are drugs. They are uniquely and magically addictive.

Try to take away a kids tablet, a teen's phone, or an adult's phone. They will fight just like an addict.

This is not particularly insightful if you stop and think about it. Try to unilaterally snatch a book that someone is in the middle of reading and you will probably be met with a hostile reaction. Grab the tool someone is using to do a task, similar. What you're describing is the natural reaction to messing with someone else's possessions. Without further context it's blatantly toxic behavior even if you happen to have the authority to force the matter.

You aren’t reading or using a hammer for 6 hours a day. It’s hard to find a tone ppl aren’t using their phone that would be appropriate to take it away if it’s only while not using it

Phones and computers are used for more than one thing; in that sense they aren't analogous to a single item such as a book or hammer but rather an entire closet filled with odds and ends. Keeping in contact with acquaintances, checking traffic and looking up other day to day information, reading a book during down time, these are three completely distinct activities that have all been nearly entirely subsumed by screens for me.

Motherfucker you try to take my fork while I'm eating and you're going to get a stabbed hand. Are forks addicting?

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