[aeonfox]

The other flaw of the study is that it doesn't compare populations with no social media, to the ones with.^ Just because you're not on social media, doesn't mean you're not affected, specifically where bullying is involved. You might switch off social media because of this, but have worse mental health outcomes.

^ No-one can do this kind of comparison anymore because no such population really exists, save for the Amish and extant hunter-gatherers who would have plenty of other confounders contributing their mental health measures. However the upward trend in suicide since the late 2000s pretty well correlates with smartphone usage. As does the drop in fertility rates (which are now showing to not necessarily correlate with the oft-cited suspects like wealth, female educational attainment, etc.)