[bunderbunder]

100 years ago people were making similar arguments about kids reading books, and then somewhere between then and now the culture shifted and we decided we actually want kids reading more, not less.

I agree with parent poster, we've got to be very careful about correlation and causation here. The screen kids I know, yes they definitely do seem to have poorer mental health, but there also tends to be a lot more questionable stuff than just the kid's own screen time happening in their homes. Notably, their parents are often so completely keyed into their own priorities (which may or may not be Wordle) that the kids don't really have anything else to do, anyway. So another decent hypothesis is that the kids just aren't getting as much good social interaction, period, and that's what's really affecting their social-emotional development. If that's true, then that might imply that the screen is more of a coping mechanism on the kid's part (and therefore might even be beneficial given the context) than a primary cause of the problem.

[galdosdi]

I think that's right, and this isn't that different from "TV latchkey kids" from the 80s. The difference is a phone in your pocket is even more addictive than a TV in the living room, and the algorithmic apps serve more addictive content than the 5 over the air broadcast channels on TV did.