Most kids in middle school don't have careers, property, deep responsibilities, or most other things adults focus on. They just have phones, a handful of friend

Most kids in middle school don't have careers, property, deep responsibilities, or most other things adults focus on. They just have phones, a handful of friends, and some sort of position in an arbitrary social hierarchy, and so they put most of their focus into getting social approval. Grades matter only to the extent that they get social approval from adults. Telling a middle schooler to just quit social media is like telling an adult in a capitalist society to just not worry about money. It isn't that easy to opt-out of the thing most of your world is based on.