You gotta know that not all people are like you, hell, I would say most people aren't. Like yourself, I'm also mostly self-taught. All the useful and profitable skills I have I mostly have learned on my own thanks to the internet. I did go to school and have a CS degree, but I did that because I pushed myself to get better, and managed to pull my self away from all the distractions. But, like I said, most people don't take advantage of the real benefits that the internet have, and fall into the trap of the rest of the more trivial and "useless" stuff. So, I do think that completely banning smartphones is too radical, but at the same time think that we must do something to solve the problems that this article describes.
I think there's definitely room for talking to your child about self-awareness, and self-directed behavior. If you just stop your child from using some distraction then they'll just be an adult who is consumed by distraction. You're creating a crutch from actually learning the skill of managing their time.
