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Digital media health risks warrant global action to protect young people, experts argue

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Digital media health risks warrant global action to protect young people, experts argue

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The way digital technologies are currently built and governed creates real risks to health worldwide, alongside genuine benefits, according to a new three-paper series authored by 13 global experts and published in The Lancet. The authors call for coordinated governance of digital systems, with the health and online safety of children and young people made an immediate global policy priority.

"Use of digital media is now woven into the fabric of childhood and life as a young adult. Governments have let technology companies write their own rules, leading to business models built to capture attention and collect data, with health treated as an afterthought," says series chair professor Ilona Kickbusch, Digital Transformations for Health Lab (DTH-Lab) (Switzerland).

"The evidence linking problematic digital media use to poorer mental health, sleep and physical activity, although not conclusive, justifies coordinated, global action. With the right governance, a healthier digital world for young people is possible, one that allows them to benefit from online opportunities without substantial risk of harm to health."

Digital media include the content people watch, make or share online. They span the content itself, the platform it's delivered through and the device used to access it.

A new umbrella review (a review of published reviews) for the series, covering 9 million people under 25 across 121 reviews, finds consistent associations between problematic digital media use (defined by the series as addiction-like patterns of digital media use, rather than by time spent online) and a range of adverse health outcomes for children, adolescents and young adults.


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