Some argue that increased anxiety in young people is due to societal catastrophization (e.g., climate change) rather than social media.

“the minority argument is look there are a lot of reasons that young people are too anxious today um social media might be one of them but it's far from the only one these people would argue that we've catastrophized everything in the world right we've got every young person thinks that by 2030 uh the the climate is going to have eroded to the point where it the world will be uninhabitable um even though of course that's not true but nevertheless there there are enough people who who have catastrophized so many things in terms of um of of the future of this planet that that maybe that's that's part of the reason”