"At the core of the social media ban is emerging research indicating that for some teens, extended time spent on social media is associated with depression and anxiety. A 2022 study found nearly half of adolescents reported social media making them feel worse about their body image."

umm your literally surveying a population that fills out these questionnaires by making faces with the scantron (ok, not sure if that is something still in use, but while it's dated it's literally what I saw EVERY KID in my 9th grade, so about 14, class doing when required to take a survey to this end in the late 1990s early 2000s). The point is the survey data is likely completely and utterly inaccurate in the first place.

However even if it wasn't there is no evidence to suggest that this is anything other than normal teenage behavior. Hormonal changes, etc. and the implication of the wording of the question is what leads to youth to whatever degree there is anything behind the question to answering yes when there is ZERO evidence of correlation between the two.

One is likely to be depressed, not know the cause, and associate it with their phones when asked such a question about it being the reason for their depression.

Basically there is ZERO scientific accuracy to these surveys and properly done research is EXTREMELY rare.

This reminds me of other "studies" where researchers over decades repeatedly used incarcerated populations. I think it was something like gay men who were incarcerated or something of that nature. Why use incarcerated gay men? Because gay men have been discriminated against for generations and so no non-incarcerated gay man would fill out such a survey. The obvious problem is that you then wrongly conclude all gay men are sick criminals.