> “Going to the mall has gone down. Driving in the car for fun has gone down. Going to the movies has gone down,” she said. “We’re talking about kids who are spending five, six, seven hours a day on social media.”

The malls are dead, gas is overpriced, helicopter parents don't let kids out of the house, and movies (sitting next to each other in the dark staring silently at something else) is barely social interaction anyway. That all assumes teens can afford to do anything anyway.

Give teens more freedom, give them places to hang out, give them more autonomy and trust when they're younger so they have more confidence, but they'll still be staring at their phones a lot of the time because there is a ton of pressure to respond to everything immediately. Phones are designed to encourage it and to pull our attention back to the screen every few minutes. Teens want the instant validation and some semblance of connection.