The Romans had the coliseum to entertain the populous, all to distract from the problems their empire was facing.

So as you put it, its different flavours of the same thing.

Yes algorithmically targeted highly personalized addictive social media might no be the same as a TV rerun of Golden Girls, but both are still a form of entertainment and one could argue both are fighting for your attention/distracting you from the world.

Correct, its not about the phone its about “distractions” in general.

The phone is just today’s equivalent, of yesterday’s thing that keeps people entertained and distracted from the world around them. Whether that is a TV, Newspaper, Book, Play, or a cold beer.