I find it very useful to be able to look up information at a moment's notice, whether or not a store has something in stock and where it is in the store before I go, doing group chats and video calls with family and friends almost anywhere I am, being able to get a taxi at a known price and see it arrive on a map, etc.

I just had a medical emergency in a foreign country and was able to navigate it with relative ease and almost no cost using translation features. I was able to scan and OCR documents with my phone camera which let me easily submit insurance claims, yada yada, a lot of things are much easier and cheaper in this day and age.

I stay away from the "news" websites (ironic given this site is called Hacker News, but it's not as monetized, so I guess it still works) and instagram/tiktok/youtube shorts/x style stuff.