Is it bad that smartphones are becoming our primary computing devices?

Of course it's bad, and of course it's good. The question is too simple.

Smartphones are democratizing access to information, so they enable potential empowerment.

Smartphones also nudge users towards stupid, irrational, emotional, impulse decisions that harm them (microtransactions, subscriptions, mindless consumption). They also make it hard to do meaningful empowering work, such as reading up contracts, laws and education-related information (i.e. cannot read a PDF on a smartphone). [1]

A simplistic model would be that smartphones help those wo are worst off, but harm those in the middle. Highly privileged people are in an entirely other world of course.

[1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/205015791770832...

I don't think it is, just think about all the people (billions) which either can't afford a desktop or laptop, or can't connect one in their home. Now they are connected to the entire world, their families and communities through smartphones. And that cost of entry does keep getting lower. Perhaps it is transitional? Until something better comes along (AR/VR)? Then a smart phone is just a mobile computing device that generates/renders the virtual world around you (while remaining in your pocket). Who would want a laptop or desktop then, hah.

As long as general purpose computing remains something that business and a significant fraction of the public rely on, we'll be ok. If we lose the battle for general purpose computing, we're faced with unassailable corporate overlords.

no! it only is happenstance that two vast dipshit useless consumerizing anti-computing applicationizing loser companies control all the smartphone market & that the market is sucky & awful & has no innovation or verve! like a lot of computing!

the form factor is not the problem nor really a big constraint. thr form factor so happens to be dominated by even loer than regular fi computing, subcomputong, of the lowest ambitions. dominated by unexpert systems & portals. that's not a real restriction of the technology. it doesnt reflect anywhere near as bad on mobile tech as the situations seems.

Yesterday I installed NixOnDroid, Code-Server, Node.js and a full X server with KDE on my phone. There's no practical difference anymore. You don't even need to root it.

Well it's bad if you consider we're headed for a hellish nightmare where corporations and government collect your personal data and use technology to limit your freedom. Oh wait, we're already past that. Scan your vaccine passport and quit asking questions.