'Time Well Spent' features are the Marlboro Lights of the tech industry

Big Tech likes to disrupt. But when it comes to papering over the problems it's created, it's happy taking a page out of a well-worn corporate playbook.

Over the last month, Google, Apple, and, most recently, Facebook and Instagram, have all unveiled features intended to give people a better understanding of and control over how they use their phones. 

The features are part of the "Time Well Spent" movement, a phrase popularized in 2017 meant to address concerns about screen addiction, particularly for adolescent development. The idea of the movement, and now its Big Tech-endorsed manifestations, is that through tools to understand and manage use, people can fight addiction and have a sense that the time sucked into the vortex of our smartphones is "well spent."  Read more...