I favor gun control. But guns don’t kill people, people kill people. Yet, anyone with an ounce of brains knows that a gun in the hands of someone who cannot be trusted to use it properly is a grave danger. The smartphone has immense capability, and this needs to be used with proper restraint and mature judgment. Yes, it needs to be properly filtered. Placing this device in the hands of someone who will use it improperly is a risk. I do not think there is an argument to that.
The issue implied in this psak seems to have a different focus. What I am detecting here is attention to the addictive quality these devices have. They attract, and this attraction can intrude on much else of life, especially areas of kedusha that are precious to us. Even if the device is filtered, there is still that attraction, and someone drawn into it can be easily snared and trapped. Allowing ourselves to become dependent on anything is dangerous, and probably ossur. The Chofetz Chaim once admonished a smoker, who was told by his doctor to stop smoking due to a lung condition, “Who allowed you to accept on yourself a dependency?” We are to be dependent on HKB”H, not any other type of dependency. These devices easily take over a person’s life, whether by phone calls, texts, social media, checking news, etc., the “kosher” things.
Has anyone noticed the phenomenon of people standing in shul, with tallis and tefillin, talking on their phones? It is not uncommon. Have we lost our moral and halachic compass? Have we concluded that this is not the “hesach hadaas” that is forbidden with tefillin? Or are all of these mundane, non-pikuach nefesh issues suddenly elevated to “high priority” status?
I happen to disagree with the details of this psak halacha, in that this will not likely lead to much improvement, just in people hiding their activity better. I do not feel that barring kids from yeshivos and schools is useful, just damaging the younger generation. But not because the smartphone issue is not real. Perhaps this psak is useful for Eretz Yisroel, which they are able to assess, but maybe not for America. The issue is a real one, and needs to be responsibly addressed everywhere.
Lastly, as a generation, we are deficient in promoting Ahavas Hashem and Yiras Hashem. Smartphones fill that void well. If our focus was on building the strength of the Yiddishe neshomoh rather than banning and making issurim, we might actually grow better and stronger.