This is actually one of the most fascinating things.

I’ve often thought that smartphones and other devices are in part powerful because they allow us to sort of frack our attention and draw out benefit from all the rounding errors and schedule gaps. Even if you’re just looking at memes in the supermarket queue, you are in some sense doing a form of work in a context where you otherwise would not be. (What work? Often: politics, group affinity reinforcement, subcultural literacy improvement, etc.)

Pervasiveness and gameification allow our devices to, as it were, chew and swallow our daydreams.