It is so obvious to any parent with a child in this age group the harm that phones and social media have done. My daughter, now 15, is on anxiety meds and scars up and down her arm from cutting. I'm an MD that crossed over to tech, but my earlier profession (vascular surgery) largely involved taking care of the wreckage that the tobacco industry wrought upon society. The parallels here are obvious and striking. The spell under which society was either ignorant or in denial (via advertising) about the harms of smoking in 1950 is very similar to what we have today.
1. More research needs to be done to solidify the data on what is pretty obviously happening, but we can't wait on the data to take action (it will be important for the lawsuits though).
2. We need regulation that forces these apps to only be able to execute for something like 2 hours in a 24-hour period before being sandboxed and shut off. They aren't mission-critical, nobody "needs" instagram more than this other than Meta. These kids need a break, and to breathe.
3. We need a large educational investment, quickly, to get people to understand the harmful combination of social media, device usage, and puberty. The comments in this thread make this readily apparent... The number of "but, but, but" and "whatabout" comments is pretty astounding here.
4. Social media companies must be litigated for knowingly and willingly doing this. Class-action lawsuits, in the many billions of dollars. The behavior of these companies will not change otherwise.