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If only it were that simple to explain such things.
Pot calling the kettle black
Americans have come to grips with its South Park-esque entertainment legacy for over a decade now. David Foster Wallace was one of the first critics of trashy popculture:

"Postmodern irony and cynicism’s become an end in itself, a measure of hip sophistication and literary savvy. Few artists dare to try to talk about ways of working toward redeeming what’s wrong"

> Americans have come to grips with its South Park-esque entertainment legacy for over a decade now.

Maybe it changed over the years, but the South Park I remember always went out of its way to explicitly call out the bad behavior earlier in the episode and provide a moral.

It was usually pretty easy to segregate those that actually watched it from those that didn't and have some vision of what it was informed by others views instead of their own, as this fact was generally left out.

shooting the messenger
Most media is senseless noise that deteriorates mental health. The problem is that when there is truly nothing important to report on many media publications resort to fabricating outrage and making stories where there are none. Engagement has become conflated with spectacle.
Well blaming others is easier than being a good parent. Remember when [insert violent video game] was the casue of all the problems?
Many European countries have high quality ad free public broadcasting, targeting also web streaming and short form videos, for kids/YA, it's important.
The data certainly supports a correlation. It makes sense that there might be a casual relationship as well. However, the data doesn't necessarily prove causation.