Screen time is a symptom, not a cause. One of the vital drives of adolescents are to gain independence from their parents and figure out their own place in life. To do this, teens need to interact with peers, hang out, make mistakes, and generally be sociable.
Our society, largely, does not allow this. Instead, safety fears, need for cars, etc, keep teens at home. So what else is a teen to do to interact socially with their peers? Online is the least-bad remaining outlet for this desire - if they can't hang out in a parking lot or whatever, at least they can take selfies on instagram or whatever.
The solution isn't to ban or reduce smartphone usage, like you would if smartphone usage itself was causing problems. The solution is to make it easier and more accepted to hang out face-to-face.
Ban the phone and keep the isolating culture and you wind up with even more isolated teens.
Of course. Banning phones doesn't make any sense and computers are pretty much the same thing in the context of home. Self-moderation is critical here, though hard to do
Yes. I teach at a college. Every day I see scenes like a couple walking across campus, obviously walking together, but each on their phone instead of talking to each other.
And 100 years ago, your comment would read "I see a couple walking across campus, obviously walking together, but each staring silently at the sidewalk instead of talking to each other".
Not every moment needs to be constantly filled with chatter, and if there's nothing to say, there's nothing to say. Sometimes just the act of physically being near each other is enough.
IT can be a symptom if the underlying reason are parents that have become over-protective. Teens meeting in public places are often associated with anti-social behaviour nowadays. It's not that all teens prefer meeting online but with many parents that's a lot easier.
Our society, largely, does not allow this. Instead, safety fears, need for cars, etc, keep teens at home. So what else is a teen to do to interact socially with their peers? Online is the least-bad remaining outlet for this desire - if they can't hang out in a parking lot or whatever, at least they can take selfies on instagram or whatever.