I've never thought that screen time had any major detrimental effect on kids. I was spending most of my days in front of a Commodore 64 back in the 80s before i

I've never thought that screen time had any major detrimental effect on kids. I was spending most of my days in front of a Commodore 64 back in the 80s before it was cool. And most of it was "social media" in the form of single and later multi-user BBS systems, and MUDs once I found the Internet around 1987. I think a much larger problem is that kids aren't given free rein anymore. Part of growing up needs to be time away from adults, getting into challenging social and physical situations, and learning to fend for oneself. That seems to happen far less. I'm not just talking about overbearing helicopter parents (which is a whole other pathology that has grown, but always existed for some unlucky subset of peers). I'm talking about being out in the world and not having your parents as concierges. When I was ten years old, if I wanted to see my friends across town, I had to walk there or ride my bike. If I wanted something to eat, I had to pack a sandwich and bring it. If I wanted a new toy and it wasn't my birthday or Christmas, I had to mow the neighbor's lawn. What I see today are parents who drive their kids to every social event and give them money for whatever they want. Not an allowance for doing chores, just a stream of cash on-demand. They all have cell phones, and call their parents for a ride whenever they want to be somewhere else. When I was a kid, if the parents were at work and we got hungry, we made a sandwich or waited for them to get home and cook dinner. Now they call them at work and whine and some parent orders a pizza. The biggest problem I see with cell phones is that a solution to any trivial inconvenience is a text message away. If I'd called Mom at work back in the day, I'd better have had a broken leg.