Its all personal. Most of us are NOT sitting around for hours on our smartphones playing video games or fantasy football any more so than our parents may have played mah jongg. Nor do 99 percent of smartphone owners sit around in a dark corner watching pritzus (which seems to be the bogeyman of the “ban smartphone crowd). Instead, both computers and smartphones have provided us with an enourmous amount of additional time to spend with out children, limud torah or just take a respite from the 24×7 treadmill of everyday life. I can pay my yeshiva tuition, , deposit a check into my bank account, reserve an airline seat to Uman, order my weekly grocery list online for delivery (and do instant price comarisons), check whether the hashgacha on a certain product is still in good-standing, order a new shtender for overnight delivery to the beis medrash etc. all in minutes rather than spending time traveling to the store or holding online for someone to answer the phone. If you don’t value time, than of course, all of these efficiencies are not important and you can continue to live your life in an analog version of the Alte Heim. The good news is you have the choice and don’t have to rely on someone else telling you how to organize and live your life and still be a shomer torah u’mitzvos.
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