But the way we name things is important. Calling it passive consumption yields all sorts of interesting questions. Is the sickness of Facebook/Instagram any different from that of Netflix/YouTube? How about than Fox news? Does it actually matter what age you are? How much is bad? Does live theater count? What about a concert?
Parents deserve the nuanced result/questions when deciding what is right for their children and selves (if indeed my supposition is correct ish). Calling it screen time is lazy science until it is shown to be unique to screens (which would be an immense surprise to me)
Nonetheless I see your point. Perhaps there is an interesting distinction! Maybe worth investigating, and not particularly suggested by a 'screens are bad' line of thinking
But it's really easy to put a kid in front of some cartoon and forget about them, they'll re-watch the same thing over and over and over, lacking interaction, competition and surprise. So "screen time" is probably a good enough proxy for "passive screen time", which would be bad by your definition too.