Commentary: Safeguarding youth in the smartphone era: rethinking evidence for action – a commentary on Lai et al. (2025)

Abstract

Smartphones – used for accessing social media, gaming and peer interaction – account for the majority of screen time among children and adolescents, with many exceeding 5 h of daily use. Despite growing concern over negative impacts, action to safeguard our children from the potentially damaging effects has been slow, with concern dismissed as ‘moral panic’ in the absence of definitive causal evidence. Obtaining causal evidence is fraught with methodological challenges, exemplified by Lai and colleagues' timely synthesis of school-based interventions to reduce screen time. Such approaches (e.g. self-guided strategies/educational interventions) provide limited evidence of behaviour change and, unsurprisingly, effects rarely transfer to critical outcomes such as well-being and academic performance. Alongside gathering robust theory-driven causal evidence that can lead to strategies for promoting healthy digital behaviours, these findings reinforce the need to draw on multiple strands of evidence to inform policy. A multi-sector approach – spanning education, health and home – co-designed with young people is essential to fostering a healthier digital future.