Used to be TV back in the day, no? Not that this isn't happening but bad parenting has been a thing forever going all the way back to prehistory.

As always blaming the medium seems a bit short sighted. Who are the people controlling all these apps and social media sites? They're not run by aliens. And who are the parents letting this happen? There seems to be a much larger problem with society as a whole. The problem isn't the tech, it's how we use it. And if kids are developing more and more mental problems, maybe there's something wrong with the adults and how they run the world those kids are born into. "My child's brain is like a sponge", is what I often hear parents say. Feed them toxicity and that's what you get.

Problem was you couldn't take your television everywhere and it was a limited resources, e.g. one per household. Not one per person with mobility to boot.