Watch The Social Dilemma on netflix, it will give a better and more compelling argument than an online article explaining it, however, I worked at facebook and I've seen the internal market research around boosting "engagement". They're all playing a zero sum game and know that they're trying to maximize your engagement at the expense of everything else that might possibly be engaging (including other apps, games, media content, and incidentally useful stuff like work and school).

|| https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.31887/DCNS.2020.22.2/gsmall# ||

A 2014 meta-analysis indicated a correlation between media use and attention problems. [ http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/05/31/teens-social-media-technology-2018 ]

A recent survey of adolescents without symptoms of ADHD at the start of the study indicated a significant association between more frequent use of digital media and symptoms of ADHD after 24 months of follow-up.Citation [ https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2687861 ]

Executive Functioning: Executive function refers to a set of high-order cognitive abilities that enable humans to plan, focus attention, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks successfully. The reason for the link between technology use and attention problems is uncertain, but might be attributed to repetitive attentional shifts and multitasking, which can impair executive functioning. [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26999354/]

In a study of children aged 8 to 12 years, more screen and less reading time were associated with decreased brain connectivity between regions controlling word recognition and both language and cognitive control.[ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29215151/ ] Such connections are considered important for reading comprehension and suggest a negative impact of screen time on the developing brain. Structurally, increased screen time relates to decreased integrity of white-matter pathways necessary for reading and language. [ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31682712/ ]

|| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26999354/ ||

“Correlations between symptoms of addictive technology use and mental disorder symptoms were all positive and significant, including the weak interrelationship between the two addictive technological behaviors.”

|| https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/140/Supplement_2/S76/34184?utm_source=TrendMD ||

“Although no studies showing causal relationships yet exist, problematic Internet use is associated with having greater difficulties in emotion regulation…” [ https://europepmc.org/article/med/25041745 ]

there are too many and I don’t have more time atm.