Teach Kids Digital Nutrition

A couple of years ago, when my eldest daughter was three, I overheard her proudly telling a friend she was getting a smartphone for her birthday. The way she talked about it reminded me of my three-year-old self asking my mother if I could play with her high heels—it was an almost mythical marker of big girl–hood. She wouldn’t be unwrapping a phone, of course, but that moment was a wake-up call for me. I work as an associate professor at University College London in the area of digital humanities, or how the online world impacts our social lives. Yet even I’ve struggled to find truly practical and actionable advice on how to teach my children responsible digital use beyond limiting screentime. 

I agree with some mitigation of device use, including the classroom bans that recently rolled out in Ontario and B.C.—provided they’re paired with education. I also don’t think any kid should have a phone in their bedroom at night. (Plenty of research shows that teens aren’t sleeping enough already.) Guidance to cap screentime was originally born out of obesity and diabetes research in children: if they’re spending hours in front of an iPad, they’re likely not moving much. Cutting down is good advice when it comes to physical health, but mental well-being requires a more nuanced approach. 

Even if parents regulate the amount of time their kids spend online, they still need to think critically about whether the content itself is any good. A 2020 Pew study out of the U.S. showed that 89 per cent of kids between the ages of five and 11 are on YouTube, a largely unregulated, algorithmically driven platform. That figure alone isn’t cause for concern. The real problem is that many parents are leaving their kids to surf unsupervised—sometimes with headphones on. 

That kind of isolated, passive consumption can cause harm, possibly exposing kids to content that could increase anxiety, depression and even body dysmorphia. Worse still, they’re up against an algorithm whose business model is to hold users’ attention, potentially feeding them more intense content. In 2023, Amnesty International created TikTok accounts to simulate the online behaviour of 13-year-olds. Within 20 minutes of the accounts “signalling an interest in mental health,” more than half of the videos on the feeds related to mental-health struggles, some of which romanticized and even encouraged suicide. 

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In writing my book Smartphone Nation, I tried to create simple screen guidance that focused on the quality of online content, rather than just the quantity. For inspiration, my research team and I looked to the Canada Food Guide’s once-ubiquitous food pyramid—the one I used to see in my textbooks while growing up in Toronto. Its design laid out foods in a hierarchy, with the ones we should be consuming the least (like processed snacks) near the narrow top. Our team’s “digital diet” pyramid does the same, but with the types of information kids encounter online. The goal: more engaged intake and less mindless browsing. 

To build our model, we spent a year travelling the U.K., talking to teens about how they use their devices and what healthy habits might look like. In one exercise, we gave them cardboard cut-outs and asked them to create pie charts that broke down their digital patterns. It surprised us to see how self-aware they already were about their unhealthy usage. They doomscrolled, read one-sided rants and struggled to log off at night, even though they wanted to—and many said they were tired the next day. 

The pyramid’s five categories came out of that experiment. Its base, the largest section, is devoted to “education and learning.” The internet is an invaluable resource, provided kids can learn to identify trusted sources and avoid disinformation. Tutoring resources like Kumon or Khanmigo—an AI assistant that helps with math, science and writing—are enriching uses of screentime for younger kids. Older ones, meanwhile, might search for journal articles for projects and essays, or even out of personal curiosity.

The slices get smaller the higher up you go. The second category, “creativity,” includes digital tools to explore things like photography, drawing and music—programs such as Photoshop or GarageBand. (Here, the risk to avoid is young people altering photos of their bodies on software like Facetune, for example, or creating their own disinformation.) “Communication” includes correspondence with friends or relatives who live far away, to keep kids socially connected. The “participation” category includes gaming. Unchecked, it can be addictive or expose kids to inappropriate content; used mindfully, it can support the development of fine-motor and problem-solving skills. Finally, at the pyramid’s apex, we have “passive,” home of the infinite scroll. This can feel as relaxing for kids as it is for us adults, as though they’re shutting off their brains. That’s okay in small doses.

The intention behind the food analogy is to help parents conquer information overload. In a 2022 talk at Georgetown University, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen said that kids were suffering in part because their parents couldn’t understand the “dopamine loops” they got caught in online. The pyramid model can help in this respect. Just as one might keep a food journal to make sure their meals are balanced, parents can have their kids—I’d recommend no younger than eight—track how often they’re using screens for learning versus, say, gaming. They can then use those metrics as a jumping-off point for talks about how the content made them feel and, if necessary, empower them to cut down or unsubscribe. 

Last year, our team distributed the pyramid to members of the Association of School and College Leaders, a group of more than 25,000 education leaders across the U.K. Its members make key decisions about what goes into their schools’ curricula. Many have since integrated our pyramid into their lessons on online literacy. I’d love to see Canadian schools do the same. There’s also no reason the digital diet pyramid couldn’t be displayed in doctor’s offices for adults. This is a public-health issue, after all. 

Awareness aside, the ultimate goal is more digital regulation. Almost everything else Canadians consume is regulated, including our food and medications. Other countries are pushing this conversation along, working on regulation, education initiatives and moderation approaches. In Canada, however, there is still no duty-of-care agreement between the government and big tech to protect kids online. 

In the interim, we can have conversations at home. My own kids, now six and three, are still too young to fully grasp the pyramid’s intricacies. But they do know the difference between programmed content, like BBC Kids, and algorithmic content. They know one is curated by an expert who decides what they should be watching, and the other by a company feeding them the next wild thing. When I recently spoke to my older daughter’s kindergarten class about the algorithm, they understood it almost immediately—that risks are everywhere, but we can still make healthy choices. 

This story appears in the December 2025 issue of Maclean’s. You can subscribe to the magazine here or send a gift subscription here.