There’s this fear among parents (and grandparents) that social media is causing problems in teens that wreak havoc on their well-being and personal development. Although I have avoided social media apps like the plague, I beg to reject these misplaced fears.

Social media is no more dangerous to teens and tweens than are video games, watching television, or just surfing the net. The greater threat is what these activities all have in common: they produce virtually nothing of value.

To be clear, being devoid of value is not inherently dangerous. Instead, it’s the fact that these activities consume time. And being our most precious resource, the more time we waste the heavier the price.

Moreover, there’s something about wasting one’s time that seems a lot easier to start than to stop. Like eating potato chips, there’s not really much there but it’s hard to eat just one.

And thus, portion control becomes the challenge. All too often far too many chips wind up taking up precious space that could have been used for something truly nutritious for the body.

Bottom line: the real problem for kids using social media rests with how much time is being robbed from what they are not doing.

They’re not dealing with the frustration of learning to play an instrument against their will, or getting eye strain reading a book with a flashlight under the bed covers, or playing outside in the gravel and dirt with questionable friends, or fracturing an arm falling off a skateboard.

They’re not hitting each other with sticks, curating piles of mud, cutting themselves on scrap metal, or running face first into trees. And any hormone-driven urges are not likely to come to a safe ending as the result of a dead battery.

The countless mistakes of youth are the most important life lessons one must master as early on as possible – ideally, well before one encounters the world’s real dangers.

Sure, social media itself isn’t entirely harmless. There’s some hateful bullying and child-grooming pervert-lurking afoot. But the world never needed social media to harbor such dangers. They’ve been with us throughout millennia of civilization.

And that’s part of the problem. If social media were truly dangerous in any limited amount, we’d all know it by now. But that’s not how most of us see it; being connected with friends and family isn’t an inherently dangerous thing. The key to remember is that it’s simply not the only thing.

Allow me to wax nostalgic for a moment…

…growing up in the ’60s we embraced our own bad influences with similar devotion and focus. Our mindless television viewing felt purposeful.

We had precisely 30 minutes – and not during timeslots of our choosing – to watch one complete episode. During that half-hour, we’d get our once-weekly opportunity to catch up on the wacky shenanigans of a cast we knew well with an outcome we mostly suspected.

That half-hour would include almost 10 minutes of commercials, including memorable jingles about the virtues of cigarettes (many geezers can still sing along, despite not having heard these tunes since Nixon signed a law over 50 years ago banishing such ads from TV and radio).

Contrast that with today, when you can watch pretty much any show at any time of your choosing. And lacking cigarette commercials, you will instead learn that exciting new drugs are available to treat diseases you’re developing while by sitting on the couch all day eating chips. (You will also learn to ask your doctor if it’s right for you and to avoid taking it if you’re allergic to it.)

Unfortunately, by binge watching an entire season within a day or two, there’s nothing left to ruminate over in one’s imagination while waiting a week to find out what happens next to Jeannie or Gilligan. (Although admittedly, we intuited that Jeannie’s powers would not be widely revealed nor would anyone leave the island after Gilligan broke the damn radio.) Still, having plot lines to cogitate over during a few nights’ sleep helps instill life lessons about the dangers of being out’ed and the frustrations of analog tech.

But back to the present…

Ascribing a cause and effect relationship between serious problems facing today’s youth and time spent on social media is akin to the survivorship bias. The true danger to teens lies not in what we see happening, but in those things we don’t.

We’re looking in the wrong place to explain what’s likely ailing kids. Social media is not the problem. It’s merely a placeholder for time wasted. And time wasted can become a festering problem.

Our concern shouldn’t be over what the kids are doing. It’s what they’re not doing that’s truly dangerous.