The answer is nuanced, and more importantly, I think it's probably the wrong question.
The screen itself is rarely the problem. What it quietly takes the place of, more often, is.
The Right Question Isn't About the Screen
I don't believe digital technology is inherently harmful, any more than fire is. The same fire that warms a house can burn it down.
What matters is whether we've built a life that lets us live well alongside it, rather than be slowly consumed by it.
Why Digital Habits Are So Hard to Break
When screens do consume someone, it tends to follow a familiar course.
Relief that arrives immediately almost always wins out over a reward that takes time to come. And the easiest thing within reach is usually what we reach for.
A game or a social media feed offers, instantly and on demand, the very things ordinary life makes us wait and work for: a feeling of competence, a sense of control, the experience of belonging somewhere.
I often remind my patients of what we hope for from an ideal relationship: that it shows up reliably, that it doesn't judge us, that it comforts us when we're hurting. Then I add that these are also the same qualities, false as they are, that make an addiction so hard to leave.
The screen becomes a kind of relationship that asks nothing in return. And for a person who feels they're failing at school, work, or in their relationships, or feels trapped in their life more broadly, it becomes the solution.
The behavior isn't the problem. It's a symptom of something deeper.
What I Actually Watch For
I've stopped finding the question "how many hours are you on TikTok?" very useful.
The better question is what those hours are pushing out of a young person's life: the sleep, the friendships, the sport they gave up without much explanation, the hard feeling they no longer have to stay with long enough to understand.
What I'm watching for is displacement: the escape, the avoidance. The life that's quietly getting smaller.
Why Heavy-Handed Bans Backfire
Adolescents and young adults are going through a formative period for discovering their identity. During this period, they guard their autonomy and privacy closely.
When feeling cornered or compelled, it's natural to push back against anything that threatens that autonomy. A heavy-handed ban can quietly turn the very thing the family is worried about into a symbol of the independence they're trying to reclaim.
So rather than confront, I always encourage worried parents and loved ones to lead with curiosity.
There's a world of difference between asking a person to help you understand what they get out of it, and telling them they're addicted. Change that a person chooses for themselves has a way of lasting. Change compelled from the outside tends to rebound hard.
What Actually Helps
In today's world, it's hard to argue for a life without screens. For this generation especially, such a life simply doesn't exist, and pretending otherwise helps no one.
What I hope for, for the patients and families I work with, boils down to this: a person confident enough on the inside that the screen ends up enriching and serving their life, rather than slowly becoming it.
That's the goal. Not zero screens. A self that doesn't need them to feel whole.
Dr. Jungjin Kim is Medical Director at McLean Hospital, faculty at Harvard Medical School, and triple board-certified in general psychiatry, addiction psychiatry, and forensic psychiatry. He is the lead clinician at Wondi, a specialty clinic for behavioral digital addiction serving adolescents and young adults in Massachusetts.