> I said "you're by yourself". Forget the magazines, they are the crappiest magazines ever. The pages are sticky, they are awful.

I assumed you meant "by myself" as in "not with anyone you know". I've actually never sat in a waiting room that was entirely devoid of human life before, but I'm sure it happens in less populated areas.

> Your problem is you never took control of your smartphone.

I don't know where you got this impression. I'm not the person your original comment was responding to - I have a smartphone that I use and like.

> "Sit and think". No, I feel like reading some poetry or philosophy or an interesting article, or listening to music, or playing a puzzle game. I don't want to sit there thinking about the upcoming doctor's appointment.

Those are all valid ways to pass time - so is just sitting and thinking and everything else I said. Being able to do any of those things you listed with the swipe of a finger, even though they are not the usual suspects of Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, and Twitter, is still a form of instant gratification and still has an effect on you. A negative effect, some (myself included) think.

Also, there are plenty of other things to think about aside from the upcoming doctor's appointment.

> They can be set to be just an innocent little screen with interesting words or whatever on it. My own smartphone doesn't annoy me, it does exactly what I want it to do. Zero notifications, internet data is off until I need it etc.

Yes, they can be used like this. I use my own smartphone in a similar manner.

I read something recently (I can't remember what) but it had a quote that I liked.

"You can choose not to use a TV, but you can't choose to live in a world where the TV doesn't exist"

In a similar sense, a person can choose to use a smartphone in a responsible manner or not to use one at all, but they can't choose to live in a culture that wasn't affected by smartphones. They can't choose to live in a world where endless distractions aren't always a few swipes away.

The closest they can get is ditching the smartphone, so that's what they do. It's not just a matter of configuring away the parts of a smartphone you don't like.