The pandemic induced the major change. Schools were forced to put everything online, and so screens became the default learning environment. What's the difference between them being on a laptop/chromebook/tablet and a phone? Not really that much. Plus parents allowed their kids get phones at a younger age to keep track of them. Now we are trying to claw it back, but the big problem is that the parents are the ones preventing it. They need to be constantly attached to their kids. Our son is 16 and while he loves screens, he also is enjoying kids spending less time on them at school so he can chat with people more.