What are the potential pitfalls of using echo statements for debugging in PHP, and are there better alternatives?

Using echo statements for debugging in PHP can clutter the output, making it difficult to isolate specific messages. Additionally, echoing variables directly can expose sensitive information in a production environment. A better alternative is to use PHP's built-in function `error_log()` to log messages to a file or the console, allowing for more organized and secure debugging.

// Using error_log() for debugging instead of echo statements
$error_message = "An error occurred.";
error_log($error_message);