> Among children whose parents read to them frequently at age three, the link between infant screen time and altered brain development was significantly weakened.

It sounds a bit like the problem might not be so much "heavy screen time" as "heavy screen time, plus no alternative stimulation". Not defending heavy screen time at all, just thought it was an interesting tidbit.

The facts are:

- These games/apps are designed for commercial purpose, specifically to get parents to buy things. To do that they are designed to be exploitative and addictive. Adults are very susceptible to this, children even more so.

- These games/apps are inherently anti-social (and in all ways in which they are social is being exploited by pedophiles, see e.g. roblox)

- These games/apps are used by parents to avoid interacting with their children and to outsource parenting (often so that they themselves can scroll on their phone)

- These games/apps are used by children instead of real world interactions with other children

If you take all of these facts together the idea that there aren't serious negative consequences is just laughable. Of course there will be and the only real question is whether they can be mitigated and what avenues exist to reverse the damage.

None of this is to says that no child should ever play a video game, but obviously there will be consequences if a large parts of a child's early life consists of staring at a screen.