Disclaimer: I work in social media, and am convinced it has negative effects on mental health, which is why I limit usage.
This review is a lot less than a smoking gun though. The author goes into large detail on the quantification of associations and correlations in the first section (association review) - and limits towards communicating only qualitatively that there was an effect when getting into the longitudinal and experimental reviews (the causation-proving ones).
Reading through the actual google review doc, this is present in the review as well. Very little quantification, and when quantification is given it's the wrong type of quantification. Even in an experimental study, showing mean comparisons rather than distribution comparisons is misleading, even when statistically significant.
This is a bit of a problem, as it doesn't go into the effect size of the causation. The author is quite cleary rooting for causation to be there. This is not uncommon in science (a strong conviction into an unproven hypothesis) - but when this happens, we have to be extra vigilant in looking at the results.
EDIT: Also, for sth to be a major cause we would need to demonstrate that the effect of social media is in the top quantiles of all known effects. The most we can get out of this review (and I'd even challenge that) is that there is enough proof that social media is a causally proven contributor to mental health deterioration. Nothing presented indicates anything to say that it's a large contributor or that it's a major contributor, it just isn't discussed at all.
This review is a lot less than a smoking gun though. The author goes into large detail on the quantification of associations and correlations in the first section (association review) - and limits towards communicating only qualitatively that there was an effect when getting into the longitudinal and experimental reviews (the causation-proving ones).
Reading through the actual google review doc, this is present in the review as well. Very little quantification, and when quantification is given it's the wrong type of quantification. Even in an experimental study, showing mean comparisons rather than distribution comparisons is misleading, even when statistically significant.
This is a bit of a problem, as it doesn't go into the effect size of the causation. The author is quite cleary rooting for causation to be there. This is not uncommon in science (a strong conviction into an unproven hypothesis) - but when this happens, we have to be extra vigilant in looking at the results.
EDIT: Also, for sth to be a major cause we would need to demonstrate that the effect of social media is in the top quantiles of all known effects. The most we can get out of this review (and I'd even challenge that) is that there is enough proof that social media is a causally proven contributor to mental health deterioration. Nothing presented indicates anything to say that it's a large contributor or that it's a major contributor, it just isn't discussed at all.