The comment you replied to agrees that it's the phones (well, the social media accessed by the phones)... But then it asks, why? It's not orthogonal, it's addit

The comment you replied to agrees that it's the phones (well, the social media accessed by the phones)... But then it asks, why? It's not orthogonal, it's additive. And I might suggest that the author of the essay very likely hasn't considered this next level deeper, because "this is water".