“[In Kurt Vonnegut’s egalitarian dystopia Harrison Bergeron,] anyone with a high IQ is required to wear an earpiece at all times that buzzes loudly every 20 seconds or so with a variety of noises designed to interrupt sustained thinking, thereby bringing the person down to the functional intelligence of the average citizen.When you add it all up, the average number of notifications on young people’s phones from the top social and communication apps amounts to 192 alerts per day, according to one study.[42] The average teen, who now gets only seven hours of sleep per night, therefore gets about 11 notifications per waking hour, or one every five minutes. And that’s just for the apps that are about communication. When we add in the dozens of other apps for which they have not turned off push notifications, the number of interruptions grows far higher. And we’re still only talking about the average teen. If we zoom in on heavy users, such as older teen girls, who use texting and social media apps far more often than any other group, we are now in the ballpark of one interruption every minute. Thanks to the tech industry and its voracious competition for the limited resource of adolescent attention, many members of Gen Z are now living in Kurt Vonnegut’s dystopia.”
The Anxious Generation, Johathan Haidt
I was fortunate enough to read The Shallows by Nicholas Carr and Technopoly/Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman fairly early, and they both gave me a prudent wariness in regards to how I integrated digital tech into my life: subsequently, I didn’t get a smartphone until 2018, and even now treat it as a tool, rather than an appendage: almost no apps can send me notifications, sound or visual.
Reading Freely 
My phone lives next to my sofa and hardly moves from that location. I certainly don’t take it to bed – unless I’m using the alarm function. When I go out, unless I’m meeting up with someone so might need to co-ordinate, it stays at home. I’m sure that if its being tracked to discover my habits that it seems I never leave the house. My phone is a convenience and is, to be honest, barely used. My provider has even made comments to that effect and has put me on their very lowest tariff. I doubt that they make much (if any) money from me….
Keeping the phone away from the bed is a good idea — especially if you have to get up in the morning, because it’s a lot harder to hit the snooze button from across the room.
While my smart phone is my main phone, I certainly limit the notifications I receive as much as possible. I regard it as a useful tool and it helps me maintain my scheduled appointments. I must add that I, too, have read Neil Postman and respect his sage advice.
I owe him a re-read, especially Technopoly & Amusing ourselves to Death.