A child psychiatrist who spends his days treating kids with mental health problems says we're blaming the wrong thing. In a New York Times opinion piece, Dr. Jonathan Slater of Columbia University argues that the national panic over kids' screen time is a distraction from a far more basic failure: The country doesn't provide enough mental health care for children, or insurance coverage to pay for it. The real danger, he writes, isn't sheer hours on devices but addictive, compulsive use—especially of social media—which tends to show up in kids already grappling with issues like depression, anxiety, ADHD, autism, trauma, or family addiction. "The compulsive use is usually a sign of something deeper ... which can both feed the screen use and, in turn, be fed by it," he writes.
Slater points to research, including a large JAMA study, that found total screen hours at ages 9 and 10 didn't predict later depression or suicidal thoughts, while compulsive use did. Meanwhile, schools—the main mental-health provider for kids—are underfunded and understaffed, and a major federal program to put more clinicians in schools has been cut. Rather than impose blanket time limits, Slater argues, policymakers should expand evidence-based treatment and force insurers to cover it. "Blaming screens is a convenient way to avoid harder, deeper issues: inadequate mental health care and a system that chronically underfunds treatment," he notes. For his full argument, read the piece in its entirety here.