Dear Avram,
Let me absorb your take. I”ll comment on it later.
Great analogy! What the Star-K does is beneficial for us because they do all the necessary research and Torah Knowledge. But if somebody would just put out alerts without really knowing what is behind them, we absolutely should ding them for not having the clarity of the Star-K’s approach. This is my opinion. You can disagree with me on this scenario as well as the smartphones.
An actual scenario that bothered me was when a newly smartphone-less fellow came into beis medrash to talk with someone. This someone’s chavrusa got annoyed because he had this chavrusa squeezed into his schedule. The fellow responded, the longer I keep you here the better. Because when you leave beis medrash, you”ll be looking at your smartphone.
For the public’s benefit, all the people in this story were and still are on very friendly terms. What bothers me is that a lot of people think that there is some truth to the retort. I completely disagree. Get your priorities straight. A guy’s time to learn is the most irreplaceable thing he has. If he was in middle of the Amidah I don’t think they would let him be interrupted just to keep him away from his phone.
To me, this is the soft part of the anti-Tech movement. They don’t put enough emphasis on what a Yid could really get out of breaking his phone addiction. You pointed out that these are not exclusive to each other. That could be. But I sense that the dominant focus on ridding the temptation, has clouded the overall purpose. Maybe it’s because I was in Yeshiva at the time, and there was a lot of collective and communal pressure directed at us to not have phones. When it should have been to be fully immersed in Torah.
It still seems like it is presented backwards to Yeshiva Bachurim.