What's the final ruling on screen time and emotional problems?

There have been many peer‐reviewed journal articles on screen time and young people, many of them written up in CABL . Is it addictive? It can be, it depends on how it's used and needed. But the amount of time spent on a screen is not a good measure of addiction — the quality of that time is. Do children (and adults, for that matter) turn to their phones out of boredom? Out of a need for a dopamine jolt? Out of a need to escape reality? Or are they curious about the world around them, much of which is a story to be told online.