Smartphones gave us the internet in our pocket.
But what if smartphones are also contributing to population decline?
I posted recently about the benefits I personally saw from smartphone manufacturing during my time in consumer electronics.
Trillions of dollars created.
Entire industries built.
Global communication compressed into a device that fits in your hand.
Smartphones changed how humanity works.
Probably permanently.
But the social side effects still feel under-discussed relative to the economic upside.
A lot of modern life now competes directly against:
- Focus
- Intimacy
- Boredom
- Presence
- Community
Dating, relationships and family formation increasingly happen through the logic of apps and feeds.
Things humans probably evolved needing more than we realised.
Technology gives us leverage.
But it also quietly rewires incentives and behaviour at societal scale.
That’s why I think the smartphone era will eventually be viewed similarly to the industrial revolution.
An enormous leap forward economically.
With second-order consequences humanity only fully understands much later.