The difference is that there was very little real expertise behind the moral panics about video games or music. This isn't the case with concerns about social media impacting mental health.
To be fair, there's very little real expertise regarding the impact of social media at this point as well.
Soft sciences + Relatively New = Limited expertise
When did social media really become ubiquitous? Perhaps somewhere around 2012?
The first larger studies on the impacts on mental health didn't start until around 2015'ish I want to say?
The larger NIH meta analysis conducted in 2020 even concluded that there's nothing concrete.
7 of the 16 studies were cross-sectional and failed to determine the causal relationship between the variables of interest. Given the evidence from cross-sectional studies, it is not possible to conclude that the use of social networks causes mental health problems. Only three longitudinal studies examined the causal relationship between social media and mental health, which is hard to examine if the mental health problem appeared more pronounced in those who use social media more compared with those who use it less or do not use at all. Next, despite the fact that the proposed relationship between social media and mental health is complex, few studies investigated mediating factors that may contribute or exacerbate this relationship.
Social media is a new study that is rapidly growing and gaining popularity. Thus, there are many unexplored and unexpected constructive answers associated with it. However, the extent to which the use of social media impacts the public is yet to be determined.
Like with many other facets of the soft sciences, early research can sometimes be prone to biases, as the researchers who take up the mantle of wanting to studying it, are likely the ones who would have some strong opinions about it.
It's hard to isolate social media as a cause/culprit, when it's rise to prominence overlapped with a lot other big social/societal changes that were happening at the same time period. Some of which could absolutely lead to having more negative outlooks on life.
As I mentioned before, we (as a society) have done a terrible job of prepping this latest generation for reality. The tail-end of Millennials, and GenZ's were very
coddled compared to their GenX & early-Millennial counterparts.
As a result, we've both
A) instilled some very unrealistic expectations in them, and
B) over-fixated on every societal problem (some real, some perceived) that they're not going to be be able to change/fix in any short period of time, and told them "you're the generation that will solve problem XYZ!"
...that all but guarantees disappointment when they get a little older