Exactly. Regarding people, you need to spend time with them and its not true that 100% of that time is useful. While you previously did absolutely nothing, now

Exactly. Regarding people, you need to spend time with them and its not true that 100% of that time is useful. While you previously did absolutely nothing, now you can do infinitely many things of various complexity and usefulness WHILE STILL BEING HALF-PRESENT. You have more choices. I am also VERY IMPATIENT, and with phone stuff that were driving me crazy are now not a problem at all. The article is completely meaningless - the two things are not comparable. Many people like to do mostly meaningless stuff - watch reality shows, read the newspapers, read pulp fiction, watch sport events every day with a lot of emotions. Phone is another medium, nothing else. People will find ways to do such things on any kind of medium. One thing is more concerning - time doing nothing (boredom) is reduced a lot with a phone because its so effective in accessing stuff from everywhere. During such times human brain can practice imagination and problem solving (there is nothing detracting ATM). Simply turning off notifications and real time sync is enough - I usually check for a mail 3 times a day manually and sync the phone even less then that (not only on phone but on Desktop too). I think that method works pretty good.