Are smartphones serving as adult pacifiers?

When Shiri Melumad was working on her doctorate in 2012, she found herself reaching for her smartphone during moments of stress, before a tough exam, for example. She didn’t always use it, she just held it. It was comforting.

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Shit, they're just now figuring this out? I can go into any public place and half the people there have a death grip on their precious phone while the other half have their noses buried in it.

It has to be a pacifier because there's no other reason on earth why they'd feel the need to have that damned thing right there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.