Sounds like you're just saying "deal with it" because you don't personally struggle with it.
Sorry if it came off that way. Like I said, I don't doubt that some people might be addicted to it.
I absolutely think they should pursue the remedies they need for themselves, whether that's quitting social media or pursuing a meditation practice. I have friends who quit Facebook and I don't hold it against them (though I do recognize it makes keeping in touch a lot harder).
My problem is that he can't seem to recognize that this addiction might not be universal, just like alcoholics shouldn't force prohibition on the rest of us. (In fact, he literally calls for "restaurants where smartphones must be surrendered upon entering.")
However, the rate of adoption described in the article[0] is worrisome.
0: Actually, you might just look out a window to get the same data.
Just like there are some restaurants that don't serve alcohol, note. Or restaurants that don't serve meat.
The main problem with alcohol (at least in my culture) is that it's not given that you can go and drink non-alcoholic stuff in a social gathering without others making it a huge problem.
In that situation, who would go into the non-alco restaurant? Especially would you like to ask your friends "let's go to the non-alco place instead of the usual one", if the drinking is the thing you find problematic? Yeah, I've never heard much about non-alco restaurants.
The existence of gimmicky restaurants isn't answer to these kinds of problems, because the inherit reason is ... how I would say this ... in the societal background of "what is normal": the overall framework what is expected of you, what you can reasonably expect of others, and what options you are left with if you think you have a reasonable, principled case against the way things currently stand and disagree with the behaviour that is considered "normal"?
The parallels to over-indulging in predatory social media products are left as an exercise to reader.
> would you like to ask your friends "let's go to the non-alco place instead of the usual one"
Sure. Vegetarians and vegans do this sort of thing reasonably often.
I should note that actual friends would tend to respect this sort of request. If I had a friend who struggled with alcohol addiction I would certainly respect a request to go to a no-alcohol place. In fact, I would default to that in that situation. It's just basic politeness from my point of view, and yes, I realize that the concept of "politeness" differs from society to society too.
> Yeah, I've never heard much about non-alco restaurants.
They're everywhere, in some countries. Simple example: McDonalds in the US. Again, this varies from country to country; in many countries in Europe McDonalds does serve alcohol. This does come back to the societal attitudes thing.
I agree that this is rarer for upscale restaurants, but from a quick search http://www.latimes.com/food/jonathan-gold/la-fo-gold-dongpo-... is an example (whether temporarily or not is not clear).
Certainly there are lots of medium-scale restaurants in the US that do not sell alcohol but may allow you to bring your own, and then you, as the group going, get to make the call on whether to have alcohol. Of course t305158 he parallels between alcohol and phones are not exact; most people don't carry alcohol with them everywhere they go. ;)
But in general what I think you're missing is that having explicit options that buck the societal trend goes a long way towards normalizing bucking the societal trend.
> The existence of gimmicky restaurants isn't answer to these kinds of problems
It's not _the_ answer, but it's part of _an_ answer.
alcoholic ranting [...] hyperbolic luddites.