The screen is also a continual, addictive flow of short video clips that are largely designed to sell product, stoke FOMO, make people feel inadequate about beauty, etc.

Observe young people using their phones, and you can see the social use is often just occasionally switching from TikTok to a chat app, dashing off a one-line message, and then going right back to TikTok. Big difference from having actual long phone conversations with friends after school.