Yeah I agree there. I mean, something like the phones we used to have as kids are a bit difficult to even find in actual shops these days. If you do, they either don't cost shit, or almost as much as a low-end smartphone (such as the Lumia 630).
I don't mind kids even being on Facebook or Twitter on their phone (unless it's during classes or something), but there are so many drawbacks. For instance, they rather sit on the couch playing addictive mobile games than actually playing with friends. By that I do not mean online games :lol:
It's like most teens can't even live without their phones anymore these days. They have to take selfies with everything and everyone and literally every move they make needs to be posted online. Even in social interactions they're too busy filming what they're doing rather than actually whitnessing it, and that just makes me feel a little sad.
Gotta admit that's not just teens though. My dad was looking to buy a Galaxy S3/S4 (can't quite remember) about a year back cause he wanted a high end phone. Now, my dad doesn't really need a high-end phone either for things such as Facebook and Whatsapp, and non-hardware-intensive games like Wordfeud, but he has a friend that always has the latest iPhone, so he wants a fast phone. Anyway, I eventually talked him into at least getting the Nexus 4 that basically had the same hardware, but for €100 less at the time.
It's happened multiple times that we're having a conversation and he just randomly pulls out his phone and starts texting. When I then ask him what I just said he replies with something that sounds vaguely like what I in fact did say, but meaning something completely different.
That's the point where I ususally just walk away. If a person is not interested enough to listen to what I'm saying to them, then I don't care enough to tell them, even though the topics were about things that he brought up and I wanted to give some helpful input.
TL;DR, Actually a lot of people buy phones that they don't need these days and smartphones are in a way ruining certain face-to-face communication scenarios.