a smartphone is an amazing piece of technology

So is the Internet. Apparently, people use it to watch kitten videos and spew shit onto others they haven't even met because a dress is the wrong color. It's how you use it that counts.

Now, imagine socialising through emotionless text messages rather than physical presense and conversations rich with tones, with seeing someone's face change as they hear this or that. If that's the only or the most prominent way you socialise, you aren't growing healthy: not every part of your social engine develops equally, which leaves you stranded when you encounter oh-so-unfamiliar body language.

Texting might be important, I grant you. In situations where you can't speak but have to provide information, texting is fantastic: we all can read and write our common language in which we communicate, and thus, expressing the world or oneself is fully possible there. We can use texts to communicate even the most complex and intricate ideas, as the great books have proven hundreds of times. Hell, right now! We're arguing about the use of smartphones on a mostly-text online forum (and I'm confident assuming we're not even on the same continent while doing so), over a text that talks about texting, using text. I think it's great, and I'm glad to have this opportunity.

Now, take a look at what many people's message feed is. Are they discussing stuff that matters? Are they arguing with international strangers about the perils of social-nationalism? Are they sharing their observations on this great new TV show's deeper meaning? I highly doubt that. Not most of those, anyway. They discuss how great or awful this show was. "Ugh, I didn't like it", like it owes you to be liked. "Those fucking nazis, dude" - "Yeah, man, fuck dem nazis!". Very deep, very meaningful conversations.

The technology isn't in how great a progress it is - it's in how you use it. I can use a ceramic knife to cook better (arguably - the ones I used broke easily) or to kill beyond metal scanners. I can use the Internet to store - or retrieve - amazing information on the subject I care deeply about - or I can unwittingly let myself down by spending all day watching idiotic cartoons that thrive of cheap laughter. In the same vein, I can use smartphones to take great pictures, watch videos from around the world, chat with my buddies in LA while I'm on the road in India - or, I can use it to chat mindlessly with people I at most don't mind because they shorten the way to the job I hate, staring at the screen all day and all night because I can't bring myself to face the awfulness of the life I'm living. Louis C.K. has put it quite eloquiently.