Smartphone apps and social media are not pushing humanity forward. They are huge productivity drain if anything and cause more problems than they solve.
I think it's still too early to tell, but it's certainly not that crazy to think that on net the world hasn't benefited from humanity being more networked than ever in history.
In some ways it has, but there have also been significant downsides. Whether these things have really been a net benefit to humanity (or to the world) does seem debatable, at least (in my opinion).
