Screen time limits insufficient; experts call for tech regulation to protect youth

A series of papers published in the Lancet this week makes a stark argument: the way young people use digital technology has become a public health crisis, and telling families to manage it on their own is no longer enough. The responsibility, researchers say, must shift decisively toward the companies that built these platforms and the governments that can regulate them.

Jay Shaw, a Canada Research Chair in responsible health innovation at the University of Toronto and one of the paper's authors, frames the problem plainly. Most people think of technology's impact on health as a matter of personal choice—how much screen time you allow, how much willpower you exercise. But that framing misses the point entirely. The real issue lies in the deliberate design choices and business models of tech companies. These platforms are engineered to keep users engaged, to collect data about their behavior, and to monetize that information through advertising. The infinite scroll, the targeted algorithms, the AI-powered recommendations—none of these features exist by accident. They exist because they work. They keep people scrolling, and scrolling longer means more data, more ad opportunities, more profit.

The evidence of harm is substantial. An umbrella review of nearly 2,790 studies found clear links between problematic digital media use and depression, anxiety, sleep disruption, and reduced physical activity in young people. The research also identified some benefits—a sense of well-being from moderate use, for instance, and the educational value of certain platforms. But the sheer scale of digital technology's presence in young people's lives, combined with the fact that some are more vulnerable to harm than others, justifies what researchers call "precautionary public health action." Tech companies have often deflected criticism by citing insufficient causal evidence. The authors acknowledge that establishing direct causation is difficult, but they argue that the magnitude of the problem and the vulnerability of the population demand action anyway.

Canada is moving in this direction. Two proposed bills—C-34, the Safe Social Media Act, and C-36, the Protecting Privacy and Consumer Data Act—would restrict social media access to people 16 and older and establish a Digital Safety Commission to oversee tech companies. Shaw says these measures "got it pretty much exactly right." The legislation would allow exemptions for platforms that demonstrate adequate safeguards for children, which creates a crucial incentive: companies would be motivated to actually invest in safety features rather than simply accepting the status quo. Australia has already imposed age restrictions on social media, and dozens of other countries, including Canada, are considering similar moves.

Yifan Zhou, a 30-year-old Canadian who participated in the Lancet series as part of a youth advisory group, acknowledges that social media offers real benefits—connection across distances, access to information, community. But she has also heard from young people about the darker dimensions: the loneliness that comes from reduced face-to-face interaction, the anxiety triggered by constant comparison with others' curated lives online. She also knows of a family member who was targeted by online predators as a teenager, an experience that went undetected for years partly because the young person felt ashamed and didn't understand that what was happening was wrong. "The kind of regulations and also the education and a lot of things weren't in place," Zhou said.

Dr. Michael Cheng, a psychiatrist at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, sees the addictive pull and mental health consequences of social media regularly in his practice. He notes a telling shift in what hospitalized young people ask about. Years ago, children admitted to the hospital would ask when their parents could visit. Now, the first question is often whether they can keep their cellphone. Cheng, who was not involved in the Lancet research, sees the global convergence of concern as significant. "I remember 10, 15 years ago, those that were concerned, it felt like we were yelling and crying into the wind," he said. The fact that experts worldwide are now aligned on this issue suggests the conversation has fundamentally changed.

Zhou expressed cautious optimism about the possibility of meaningful reform, even as digital technology continues to evolve faster than government policy. The publication of the Lancet series itself feels like a turning point to her. She also observes that young people themselves are increasingly taking active roles in shaping their own digital futures. The question now is whether regulation and redesigned business models can catch up to the scale of the problem before more harm accumulates.