I can't reply to you anymore, but the study you cited is at least a couple of steps removed from the discussion.
First, it's about offloading navigation to a computer, and observing that humans use less of their navigation skills when doing so. This is very far removed from "smartphone use causes mental health problems".
Second, you claim it shows a "provably weaker hippocampus". But the study doesn't show that at all. It shows less activity in the hippocampus, which would be entirely expected, much like if we offloaded translation to a computer, we wouldn't see the same level of activity in the language centers of the brain.
The researchers themselves only conclude this from their study:
> These results help shape models of how hippocampal and prefrontal regions support navigation, planning and future simulation.
That's it.