I am glad you're spending time on HN to discuss this. For me it's about finding the right balance between isolation and being part of communities. Take for example phinished.org. It is a completely anonymous community for stressed out phd students, that seem to be perfect for those day when you're just to stressed out or to damn bored to do anything really useful. Sometimes it can be extremely useful to be part of a community like that. Sometimes you need distraction free days.

Smartphones, like iPhone, are only 7 years old. It will take more years for people to learn how to live with it. Smartphones have already been coined "the new cigarette", used by stressed out people to calm down on café's and public places. In the future we'll probably have professional help for people who want to quit fiddling with their phone all the time.