What a small average does and does not mean

Small, and heavily disputed. Those are the honest words for it. There is a live argument between researchers who think these averages hide real harm to particular groups, especially teenage girls, and researchers who think the harm was overstated from the beginning. We are not going to settle that for you and we are not qualified to.

Here is what a small average is compatible with. It is compatible with most people not being affected much at all. It is also compatible with it mattering a great deal to a smaller number of people, and you may well be one of them. Averages are not verdicts on individuals.

So we are not going to tell you that your phone is making you depressed. We are going to tell you that comparison has a mechanism, that the mechanism is real in the person feeling it whatever the population average says, and that there is one thing with randomised support behind it that is worth trying.