I would disagree. I don’t think it is on people to just be more “motivated by self-control”. I think it is an industry making a highly addictive product that needs to be properly regulated. Similar to regulating the tobacco industry in how much nicotine could be in cigarettes, the marketing to children, the restriction of the most addictive flavors, etc. The answer cannot just be “to put down the phone” the same as it wasn’t/isn’t just to put down the cigarette.

I think that digital devices/apps/etc. need left and right limits on addictive mechanisms like variable reinforcement schedules. Or maybe it is too late for that and the genie is out of the bottle. Maybe it is impossible to regulate, and big data and deep learning will allow apps to exploit deeper and deeper psychological mechanisms in our minds to highjack our attention until it is impossible to break out of it. The digital equivalent of fentanyl in a world were we evolved to handle opium poppy plants.