“Phone addiction” is way too broad. A lot of this criticism of phones appears out of the fact that a phone can be used for a wide range of activities. If I said someone “spent the day doing some research for work, journaling, watching TV, chatting with friends, playing a game, looking at photos from a friend’s trip, then reading local and global news”, then that sounds like a healthy balanced day. But if I described the above as “they were on their phone for 7 hours straight” it sounds unhealthy, even though it’s the same.
It would be more useful to break down more specific problems: anxiety from not checking notifications, mental health from comparing your life to perfect social media, etc. Those can be targeted and fixed.
More specific diagnoses are best left to the professionals.
However, perfection is the enemy of good. The more complicated you make the diagnoses and more specific the criteria, the more difficult it becomes to engage with the concept.
For the average smartphone user, the criteria for identifying potentially detrimental smartphone addiction needs to be as simple as possible.
> But if I described the above as “they were on their phone for 7 hours straight” it sounds unhealthy, even though it’s the same.
Being on your phone for 7 hours straight is not healthy, regardless of what you're doing. Much better to do work and research on a proper screen that you're not holding 9 inches from your face, and much better to sit with proper posture instead of craning your neck at a smartphone.
The problem with trying to divide everything into ultra-specific categories is that addicts are very good at rationalizing away their problems. For example, someone addicted to social media might justify it as keeping up with their social life, and someone addicted to 24/7 news headlines would justify it as keeping up with current events. Give enough leeway, and an addict can easily justify away 90% of their smartphone usage as beneficial, all while letting a smartphone take away from other, healthier activities in their life.
Even if you call that a "balanced" day, that's 7 hours straight of using a tiny mobile device, when you could use an actually ergonomically sound device with better I/O speed and higher resolution, i.e. an actual computer. People would get those tasks done faster with less strain on their body if they used a different machine.
Half of that I can't bare to imagine doing on a phone; the other half I'd really rather not, though platforms used (especially chat and photos) may necessitate it.
It would be more useful to break down more specific problems: anxiety from not checking notifications, mental health from comparing your life to perfect social media, etc. Those can be targeted and fixed.