Screen addiction among youth a public health issue requiring government intervention, researchers say

TORONTO — Screen addiction among young people is a public health issue that requires governments to intervene, according to researchers behind a new series of papers published Sunday in The Lancet.

"Parents can't be the only line of defence," said Andrea Chrysanthou, board chair of the advocacy group Children First Canada.

Co-author Jay Shaw, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, said the research offers a sense of "what needs to happen to protect children's health."

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The researchers reviewed data from 2,790 studies involving more than nine million participants.

For children aged 10 and under, too much screen time was linked to sleeping less and affected cognitive, emotional and social development.

For those aged 10 to 24, implications ranged from mental health problems and reduced physical activity to substance abuse, self-harm and suicidal ideation.

"I think we're in a moment globally right now, where the harms associated with digital media use, especially for young people, have become quite clear," Shaw told CBC News.

Chrysanthou, who is based in Toronto, said it has been almost impossible to limit her 13-year-old son's screen time.

"My son understands that he's addicted," she said. "We want the companies and the platforms to take responsibility, to make their platforms safe."

Dr. Rachel Mitchell, a psychiatrist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, said most digital platforms were not designed for young people, whose brains are still developing.

She said they are bombarded with features like autoplay, push notifications and gamification designed to capture constant attention.

"Adults, at least, have fully developed frontal lobes with which to regulate, and they can't even do it themselves," Mitchell said.

"So, why we're expecting children to do it is beyond me."

Shaw compared the situation to public health interventions for smoking, saying society may be at its "so-called big tobacco moment" with technology.

"If we don't get out in front of it, then digital technologies will end up being more harmful than beneficial for public health."

Mitchell noted digital devices have benefits when used in moderation, such as for education, unlike cigarettes.

But she said the risks are so high and affect such a wide population that it is no longer ethically possible to manage without government or tech company intervention.

The researchers said the true severity of the issue cannot be fully understood without access to tech companies' user data, which they are not obligated to share.

"It's very hard to reconcile morally, ethically, how that data cannot be available to researchers," Mitchell said.

Some companies have implemented tools aimed at helping parents.

Meta agreed to implement age limits in the U.S. as part of an $18 billion US settlement in August.

TikTok has a default one-hour limit for users aged 13 to 17, though it can be turned off.

The head of Snap Inc. recently told BBC News the company is open to time restrictions for teens.

Mitchell said such steps are "absolutely necessary" and "should have been there from day one."

The federal government's proposed Safe Social Media Act, Bill C-34, would compel tech platforms to provide researchers with data and force companies to restrict accounts for children under 16 unless adequate safeguards are implemented.

Shaw said the research review can help governments shape public health policy.

With files from CBC News