>Phones can probably be related to board games or cards of the years past.
Except that phones are pretty much the opposite of that. Thanks to the magic of today's phones you won't have to deal with those boring people who happen to be in the same room as you.
When I was a kid, I always brought a book with me when I went places. Portable entertainment is not new. Occasionally I'd bring a deck of cards and play solitaire if I anticipated being somewhere conducive to that.
Our tendency to blame age-old problems on modern scapegoats usually reaffirms our biases, but less often is upheld by the data.
Except that phones are pretty much the opposite of that. Thanks to the magic of today's phones you won't have to deal with those boring people who happen to be in the same room as you.