Obliteration is like when "you," your conception of "your self" as an entity in the world ceases to exist. Like your internal thoughts turning off, minutes turning into hours, lack of awareness of your surroundings. If you've ever been to a casino or seen someone with a bad drinking problem, that's kind of what I'm talking about. Alternately (!), if you've ever seen someone in a pro tennis match, grandmaster chess tournament, (or as other commenters are rightly pointing out -- reading a really good book!) it's kinda like that too.

However, those productive activities are different for the soul in a way that I have trouble articulating.

I emphatically am not intending it as just like "thing that's really really bad."

I don't think it's unmoored or disproportionate at all, actually. Look at someone who is really locked in on one of these apps. Or do a search for social media addiction, that stuff really does wreck people's lives and is bad for the soul. A wide body of psychological research supports this. I am sharing what I have noticed and trying to understand what the causal mechanism is.

It takes 1,000x less time and energy to come up with a pet theory de novo and sans any evidence than it takes to debunk. Without backing evidence provided for an idea, it should be as easy to dismiss out of hand as it was to create it in the first place.