A collection of papers published Sunday in the Lancet delivers a blunt verdict: the sheer scale at which children and young people now consume digital technology has become a public health issue, one that demands immediate government and corporate action rather than more appeals to individual willpower. The authors, drawn from research institutions around the world including Canada, argue that the burden of protection has been misplaced for years - resting on parents and kids instead of the companies that design the platforms and the governments that regulate them.
Jay Shaw, co-author of the series and Canada Research Chair in responsible health innovation at the University of Toronto, said the instinct to treat technology use as a matter of personal choice misses what's actually happening. Platforms are engineered for engagement, he said, with business models that depend on keeping users scrolling as long as possible while harvesting data on their habits for advertising purposes. For families trying to understand the broader privacy and security dimensions of that data collection, resources that explain how personal information moves across networks and who can access it - readers can learn more about these mechanisms - offer useful context for why regulation is now being treated as urgent rather than optional.
How Platforms Are Built to Keep Young Users Hooked
The infinite scroll is perhaps the clearest example of design intended to erase natural stopping points, Shaw said. Targeted algorithms and AI-driven recommendation systems compound the effect, tailoring content so precisely that disengaging becomes difficult even when the experience stops feeling enjoyable. An umbrella review of 2,790 studies cited in the Lancet series links problematic digital media use among young people to depression, anxiety, sleep disruption and reduced physical activity. Notably, the same review found that moderate use and active video gaming were associated with measurable well-being benefits - a distinction the authors say matters enormously when crafting policy that does not simply treat all screen time as equally harmful.
Regulation Gains Momentum, But Loopholes Remain
Australia has already restricted social media access to users 16 and older, and the Lancet authors note that dozens of countries, Canada included, are weighing similar steps. Canada's proposed Bill C-34, the Safe Social Media Act, and Bill C-36, the Protecting Privacy and Consumer Data Act, would establish a Digital Safety Commission and bar under-16s from social media platforms. Shaw called the approach "pretty much exactly right" if passed, though he flagged a significant caveat: companies could be exempted by demonstrating "adequate safeguards" for protecting children - a provision that places real weight on how rigorously regulators define and enforce safety standards.
Lived Experience Behind the Data
The series also drew on a youth advisory group of six young adults. Yifan Zhou, a 30-year-old Canadian participant, described both the benefits of staying connected across distances and the darker consequences she has witnessed, including a family member exposed to online predators for years before disclosing it out of shame. Dr. Michael Cheng, a psychiatrist at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario who was not involved in the research, said he has watched hospitalized young patients shift from asking about visiting hours to asking whether they can keep their phones - a small but telling sign of how deeply embedded these platforms have become in daily life, and why experts increasingly see global consensus as the first real opening for change.