Less crime, fewer teen pregnancies, less smoking, less drug use, and lower high-school drop-out rates are also coincident with concerns about screen time and social media use. By the same "correlation is not causation" argument, these have nothing to do with each other. It's great that these things are trending in the right direction. But there are still a whole lot of mental health problems among pre-teens, teens, and younger adults.
Not all screen time is the same. Some of it is really beneficial to mental health, and some of it isn't.
For me, the concerns about mental health and screen time come more from issues of body image distortions, bullying, slot-machine mechanics to maximize engagement, and the somewhat rare but abhorrent behavior of some corners of the internet that encourage people to commit suicide. I'm sure there are more examples than this as well.
Not all screen time is the same. Some of it is really beneficial to mental health, and some of it isn't.
For me, the concerns about mental health and screen time come more from issues of body image distortions, bullying, slot-machine mechanics to maximize engagement, and the somewhat rare but abhorrent behavior of some corners of the internet that encourage people to commit suicide. I'm sure there are more examples than this as well.