If you look at social science as an entire discipline (separate from "hard science"- which sounds dismissive- "Hard science" is able to achieve better precision because its experimental subjects are easier to control! in those ways it is easier!), it is so fraught with confounding factors and difficulties applying controls that eventually you have to choose a lower standard of evidence than "perfectly rigorous". One standard of evidence, or maybe better stated as epistemological standard, is the precautionary principle. If cell phones are an unknown threat, but a "creepy" one, where there certainly seems to be enough evidence that one should treat them with caution- treat them with caution. Especially when you can tell that the benefits of certain behavior patterns don't outweigh the risks.

There are lots of areas of our lives where we lean on the precautionary principle WITHOUT needing bulletproof justification.

If it's a precautionary principle, it should be called so. One should say "We don't know if smartphone is the cause, but by precaution, ...", which is clearly not the conclusion provided here.

You cannot say: I don't know if X is harmful, but by precautionary principle, X should be kept an eye on, so I can say unscientific conclusions such as "X is harmful" and everyone who complain that it is scientifically poor are incorrect.

Also, there is also a risk i precautionary principle: hiding the real cause while hurting the "good usage".

Thing is, we already applied precautionnary principles in a very organic fashion: hight end phones have always been expensive, and very few kids got access to phones able to access messages, email, then social networks.

Be it Blackberry or Vodafone/docomo phones it took years before regular teenage kids could buy them in significant numbers. Same for the iPhone, it's not like millions of teens got their hand instantaneously on a 3G the minute it went out.

By the time it became widspread enough, we already had devices in the wild for a decade or so (for reference imode launched in 1999).

We might want to revise how smartphones are regulated and/or social media policies, but IMHO we're far away from the simple "we don't know let's be cautious" phase, and there is a burden of proof on what exactly needs to be regulated to what expected effect.

>> My main issue with these hot takes is that it doesn't help, as smartphone aren't going away.

They could go away. We regulate lots of harmful things that young people want access to. Most commonly alcohol and cigarettes. It could become illegal for anyone under 16 to be in possession of a smartphone (or anyone over x to give/sell a smartphone to anyone under x years). Social networks could be fined for every single person under x years that signs up.

Couldn't one just do a study in communities like the Amish, or perhaps overseas? That could be a decent stand-in group.

no since the you would have to take in other factors that would affect that if an Amish person or one living oversees. For data like this you would have to quite literally clone these people , take away when they got a cellphone to be absolutely certain that getting a phone at the young age is the reason.

Amish have a whole different societal structure so it's too much variation. Same issue if you study Indians in a remote village for instance. That would make a poor control group to compare to teenage girls going to high school in Texas.

> So we're bound to hear hot takes that have no other substanciation than "it makes logical sense"

This is wrong. You can correlate onset of mental health issues with when the phone was issued, which Haidt and others have done to some extent. There is a clear indication that soon after the smart phone is introduced, mental health declines despite age.

> My main issue with these hot takes is that it doesn't help, as smartphone aren't going away.

This is also wrong. Not only can they go away, they are going away to some extent. More people are opting for dumb phones.

Also, it entirely neglects the possibility of parental controls over what kids can do with phones.