Teens and Social Media
What social media does to teenagers, what the evidence actually supports, and which limits are worth setting, without pretending the risks are settled.
Real lesson card · Page 1 of 3
Not hours — patterns
Myth
Total daily hours is the key metric, and less is always better.Reality
How and why matters more than how long. Passive comparison-scrolling and sleep-disrupting late use are harmful; active, social, or creative use can be neutral or positive.- WhenYou want a single rule that protects the mostKeep devices out of the bedroom overnightWhyProtecting sleep addresses the best-documented harm without policing every minute.
What the screen replaces — sleep, in-person time, movement — often does more damage than the screen itself. Guard the displaced thing.
Recall check from the same lesson
Total daily screen-time hours is the most reliable measure of social media harm to teens.
Review the explanation
Answer: False. The type of use and what it displaces — especially sleep and in-person time — predict harm better than raw hours.
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