Maybe. My teenage years were spent reading and being creative. I spent more time creating artwork during those years than in all the subsequent decades put together. But if I had had a smartphone back then? I doubt I would have read a single book or created any artwork. Would that made me a better or worse person than I am now? Well, that's impossible to say. I don't regret how I spent my teenage years. Will those who are growing up fully engrossed in their phones every feel regret? We probably won't know for about 30 more years when they have enough life experience to look back and reflect. It will be interesting to see what people have to say around 2050. Then again, what do they have to compare it with? They can't compare a life lived constantly on a phone with a life not lived constantly on one. So... maybe it is impossible for any person to say which way is better. Maybe it is just the aggregate of all of society over many decades that we can determine whether this experiment has a positive or negative (or neutral) outcome.
I don't think that's true. Most people I know on these apps are creating content just as much as they're consuming it. And the daughter in the linked article is clearly described as doing so.
