>Since this phenomenon is taking place at basically every part of the globe either capitalism is so all consuming that escape is not possible or it is a univers

>Since this phenomenon is taking place at basically every part of the globe either capitalism is so all consuming that escape is not possible or it is a universal human phenomenon. Well capitalism is a global phenomenon... so? >Again, the same people blaming capitalism for too much phone use have in the past blamed capitalism for disadvantaging the poor by gatekeeping access to technology. The whole critique is incoherent and unhelpful. Instead of trying to find actual solutions the blame is put on a vague concept. So vague that is can cause anything, too much phones, too little phones and anything else you can imagine. It is just a very lazy thought process. You seem to be mixing up critiques. Complaining capitalism about the resource allocation strategy (capital owners get things first) is orthogonal to complaining about capitalism building skinner boxes in the pursuit of profit. The concept is vague if you actually don't try to put effort in understanding the critiques, as reveals thinking the critique is "too much phones". >The truth is that markets will always exist and that humans will always seek pleasure in unheayways, phones are just one instance, but so are drugs, online gambling, prostitution, etc. If you blame capitalism you can't solve anything, because the change required to change anything would be so great as to guarantee it will never happen. Markets may always exist, I believe they will, but that's still an hypothesis. What definitely hasn't always existed and I bet it won't exist forever, is the ideology of worshiping the markets. The idea that markets are efficient has not always existed, and surely the absurd idea I have read here about markets being "a form of AI" has not always existed. If you believe that markets == capitalism, yes, you cannot solve anything, but I think that applies to defenders of capitalism, not the critics.