That rings true to me as an observation, but the trouble with the smartphones and social media is not just that we happily consume it and have always been susceptible to mindless distraction, it's that the devices and services are actively designed to pull you back in and for as long as possible as much as possible.

Books don't do that, TV does that poorly if it does try.

I also consume a lot of youtube content and after the first on-ramp became wary of just how much time I was spending with it.

Here's a solution that worked magic for me for controlling it: use adblock origin or another plugin to block the video thumbnails from loading on the landing page.

Ever since I've done this I've felt so much more in control of my youtube consumption.

I land on the homepage, I click on each individual subscription that has new content and decide whether I want to watch it now or later and typically that's it.

Sometimes I'll go, I wonder if someone has done an interesting piece on the latest F1 news and specifically search for that.