> girls who spend five hours or more on social media per day are three times as likely to be depressed as girls who use social media only a little or not at all

I mean, I can't possibly imagine the state I would be in if I spent 5 hours on Instagram every day for extended periods. But the same applies to watching reality TV or reading tabloid newspapers.

Social media clearly affects young people — some of them negatively. That said, it's not 100% negative all the time. Maybe it's just changing the structure of society. In the same way that computers gave nerds the option to be the cool hacker kids and highly-paid FAANG engineers later, some skills/traits/behaviours are becoming more valuable while others are losing their usefulness.

Things won't be the same, just like things aren't the same as they were 200 years ago. People will adapt and learn to deal with the new challenges.