FYI all, I’ve cross-cited @Elendil_s_Heir’s interesting post in the two ongoing birthrate-related threads.
I do have a smartphone, and I haven’t produced a child since 1988. Maybe there’s a connection!
I actually came in to say that I have a cousin who not only does not own a smartphone, he doesn’t own a cell phone at all. He’s very difficult to get ahold of. I’d ask him why he doesn’t have one, but, well, like I said, he’s very difficult to get ahold of…
We were going to have “the talk” with our teenagers, but decided to get them iPhones instead. 
“Kids are the best, Apu. You can teach them to hate the things you hate. And they practically raise themselves, what with the Internet and all.” - Homer Simpson
I know this comment is from over a year ago, but it completely depends on the person and how things are used. One of my siblings doesn’t have a cell phone, let alone a smart phone and it works out well for them.
For me, the features are life savers, not frivolities. I’m in Taiwan now, and the trip would be far more difficult without a smartphone.
I’ve been traveling internationally since the dinosaurs were walking the earth. Having email and the Net made it an order of magnitude easier, and then smart phones made it another.
I’m sitting in a cafe enjoying a latte as I’m typing this on my iPhone. The menu was all in Chinese and the staff doesn’t speak English or Japanese.
I could have carried a 300-page dictionary and spent 20 minutes looking up characters to place my order, but it took 30 seconds with the translation feature and the camera.
I don’t “need” a car, either, but I’m not giving up the convenience.
I still use a flip phone. I have no idea what I’m missing.
You mean Candy Crush don’t appeal to you?
As I said above, I’m visiting Taiwan. I needed to send some time-sensitive documents to the States via EMS (express mail service). I went to the post office and they no longer offer forms to fill out. It all has to be done online.
I was able to do it there and then have it uploaded and the post office processed it.
It can be done at home on the computer, but it would have required me driving back, doing it there and coming again, adding another 40 minutes or so to the process.
Other apps that are convenient:
WhatsApp. I call several friends in the States, Canada and other countries and talk for free.
Talkatone and KeepCalling. These apps let me call landlines at a low cost. For US$5 a month, I have (almost) unlimited calls to landline in the US or I can pay 1 cent a minute for international calls to the States, and a few cents a minute to other countries.
LINE. The social media app used in Japan and Taiwan. Replaces calling and texting and does so much more, including sharing photos.
ChatGPT. I use it cautiously, but damn, it can be useful at times.
Internet. Of course. Why be limited to using at home? Even simple things such as comparison shopping.
email. Again, not tied to a computer at home.
Banking apps.
Weather apps. How long will the rain last? When my son was sailing then knowing the amount of expected wind allowed up to decided if we were going to go or not.
My wife does real estate for work and her productivity would be a fraction of what she can do now.
He doesn’t have a landline? Email?
I was watching On Patrol Live last night and one of the officers pulled over someone who only spoke Vietnamese. He was able to use his iPhone to say “Hey Siri. Say (whatever it is he was asking) in Vietnamese” and it immediately did so and they were able to have a conversation this way with the person doing the same, in the other direction, on their phone. This is the stuff of science fiction come true!
Anyone who says smartphones have no good use is an idiot.
A physical mailing address?
The question isn’t whether they have no good use. The question is whether, for some people, the downsides outweigh the good uses.
Seems to me that for a lot of people the latter is true. For others, the things are entirely or almost entirely beneficial. And for a lot of others it’s somewhere in the middle.
Exactly. Seeing the way some people appear to be surgically attached to their smartphones is both amusing and also rather alarming. If they could have their smartphone surgically implanted in their skulls they’d probably do it. The addiction is especially bad for kids and young people, which is why many schools have restricted or banned them and why Ontario is considering a province-wide ban on cell phones on all school property.
Presumably, there is a vast middle ground between an iPhone surgically attached to your hand and never, ever touching any smartphone ever.
You literally said you have never heard a single good thing about smartphones ever, which is patently absurd.
I have a flip phone.
Also a turntable, manual typewriter, and a road atlas book.
So far, so good.
I mean, if you could have the type of safe, mature communications/computing technology implanted in your skull like, for instance, in the Culture novels hell yes I would do it.
I thought so! And with that, ladies and gentlemen, I rest my case – we are a world of techno-fanatics. 
Some years ago, before smartphones became as popular as they are, I saw a woman shopping the supermarket with a laptop in the baby seat of her cart, because technology is so wonderful that a 5-pound laptop is so much handier than a small slip of paper with your grocery list written on it with a ballpoint pen!
Today the bulky laptop would be replaced by a smartphone, but the same logic applies – how much more convenient to tap many times on a smartphone screen and maybe mis-tap a few times, peering at the little screen, than to have a slip of paper with your grocery list written on it!
Perhaps I will be derided as a Luddite and solemnly informed that in the “internet of everything” world, your “smart fridge” can communicate with your smartphone and tell you what groceries to buy. To which my response is, the world has indeed gone nuts, and, again, I rest my case.
What year was your road atlas book printed?
Were you truly a luddite, you would not be posting on an internet message board.
Don’t tempt him; he’s a valuable poster we, or at least I, would prefer to keep, not lose.