Psychologist Jean M. Twenge discusses how technology has affected mental health in teens in the past. Her main claim on the relationship between the two problems is that more technology leads to problems with mental health. Talking about the correlation of these issues in her article “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?”, Twege states “Teens who spend more time than average on screen activities are more likely to be unhappy, and those who spend more time than average on nonscreen activities are more likely to be happy”. Twenge makes it clear that there is an obvious relationship between the time spent looking at a screen and the mental health of the individual looking at the screen. While Twenge may be right about how there is a clear correlation between the two, she may be wrong about how they are related. Just because kids that spend a lot of time interacting with a screen are more likely to be unhappy, doesn’t mean the screen is causing the unhappiness. The relationship between the two could be that kids that are unhappy use their screens as an outlet from their unhappy lives. Screens can be used as a tool to take a break from reality. Kids that are unhappy could be utilizing that tool to escape from their stressful lives, looking at or watching things that make them happy or living vicariously through someone on the screen.
After reading the first couple of sentences I could identify the source of the information, the author of the source, and the quote you used to introduce your argument. I understand your position that phones may not be the source of depression, but that they may be used as an outlet to escape from reality. I agree with both positions because although social media can help teens escape from their problems it could also be causing problems for some teens such as over worrying and obsessing about their social media profile, and the negative feedback they could get form others.