The kids and phones thing was always an easy excuse, but the real mental health issue is much more complicated:
The most anxious generation in recorded history did not become that way because of their phones. That is the uncomfortable implication of a study published this week in Psychological Bulletin, which tracked perfectionism in college students across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom from 1989 to 2024. Across 307 samples and nearly 83,000 young people, the same pattern kept emerging: each successive cohort worried more about mistakes, doubted themselves more, and felt more acutely scrutinised by the people around them. The acceleration began around the year 2000. Smartphones arrived a decade later.
https://scienceblog.com/the-youth-mental-health-crisis-has-a-deeper-cause-than-social-media/
This study shows that this has been going on long before smartphones and social media were around to take the blame, and might have much more to do with the pressure we put on kids to always be perfect in order to succeed. They’re growing up believing that one mistake will cause them to be looked down upon, passed over for opportunities like getting into the right college, and left behind in the job market.
Imagine having your entire future riding on not making a mistake as a 10-year-old?