Early Childhood Screen Use Impact Study

A recent national survey asked about students’ behavior, emotional regulation, motor development, and other foundational skills. Respondents were also asked whether today’s students in pre-K through 3rd grade struggle more with basic skills and daily tasks than their same-age peers two years ago. Dozens of early educators shared concerns about students’ school readiness, pointing to gaps in age-appropriate motor skills, social-emotional maturity, attention spans, and overall independence. Many attributed these challenges largely to excessive screen time and permissive parenting.

Kuhfeld, M. (2026). Addicted to screens. EdWeek. 

https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/addicted-to-screens-teachers-sound-the-alarm-on-their-youngest-students/2026/04

Preteen mental health and social media study

 A new survey of 11- to 13-year-olds looks at how cellphones and social media affect kids’ mental health—and finds that certain behaviors are more associated with adverse outcomes. While  78% of respondents said they have their own smartphone, and 99% said they often use at least one kind of electronic device, owning or using these devices isn't the problem: pub Children who post publicly posting and sharing online even occasionally are more likely than their peers to report feeling depressed and anxious and get too little sleep. Professor Sharon Hoover stated, “The takeaways for schools are that, yes, the use of phones, including social media use, impacts kids’ mental health and that schools really do have a role to play in terms of digital literacy and ensuring kids are set up with proper knowledge and guardrails around these things.” Digital literacy is to safer phone and social media use.

Martin, J. D., Song, S. W., Rote, W. R., Bakour, C., Rance, L. T., Scacco, J. M., & Marcus, S. (2025). The Life in Media Survey: A baseline study of digital media use and well-being among 11- to 13-year-olds. Researchers at the University in South Florida in collaboration with The Harris Poll. Retrieved from lifeinmediasurvey.org

Screen time study

 A recent study found that reducing screen time among children and teens led to fewer behavioral difficulties, with noticeable decreases in peer-related and emotional issues and improvements in positive social interactions. Findings showed that the total difficulties score, which measures behavioral and emotional issues, decreased by an average of 1.67 points more in the intervention group than in the control group.

Schmidt-Perrson, J. (2024). Short-term screen time reduction improves mental health in children and adolescents. JAMA Network Open. 

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/short-term-screen-time-reduction-improves-mental-health-2024a1000d19?form=fpf

Teen screen time study

 

Researchers surveyed over 5,000 adolescents, mostly those ages 12 and 13, and found that recreational screen time among teens rose twofold to almost eight hours per day during pandemic lockdowns, compared with before the pandemic. The findings in JAMA Pediatrics also showed that Hispanic and Black teens and teens from lower-income families had more screen time use. Recreational screen time among U.S. teens doubled from before the pandemic to nearly eight hours per day during the pandemic, according to the report. And this estimate doesn't include time spent on screens for remote learning or schoolwork, so the total was likely much higher. "More screen time was linked to poorer mental health and greater stress among teens," said lead researcher Dr. Jason Nagata. "Although social media and video chat can be used to foster social connection, we found that teens reporting higher screen use felt less social support during the pandemic."

Nagata, J., Pietra, P., & Wartella, E. (2021, Nov. 1). Screen Time Use Among US Adolescents During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Findings From the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study. JAMA Pediatrics. doi: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2021.4334

COVID-19 impact studies

The coronavirus pandemic along with remote instruction are affecting students' academic progress, as well as their overall well-being, according to a CDC study. Of parents surveyed, 25% of those whose children are learning remotely said their children's mental or emotional health had worsened -- compared with 16% of those whose children are learning in person.

Verlenden JV, Pampati S, Rasberry CN, et al. Association of Children’s Mode of School Instruction with Child and Parent Experiences and Well-Being During the COVID-19 Pandemic — COVID Experiences Survey, United States, October 8–November 13, 2020. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2021;70:369–376. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7011a1

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Oral reading fluency stalled for many second- and third-grade students last spring, according to a study by researchers from the Stanford Graduate School of Education. found that students currently in second and third grade are now approximately 30% behind what would be expected in a typical year in reading fluency. Additionally, the study found that there was an inequitable impact, with students in historically lower-achieving districts — which often serve a greater share of low-income and minority students — developing reading skills at a slower rate than those in higher-achieving ones. The study adds that these are populations that were disproportionately affected by the pandemic in ways that impinge on their readiness to learn, including lack of access to computers, reliable internet access or a parent at home.

Dominique, B., et al. (2021). Changing patterns of growth in oral reading fluency during the COVID-10 pandemic. PACE.

https://edpolicyinca.org/publications/changing-patterns-growth-oral-reading-fluency-during-covid-19-pandemic

Student online behavior study

     Students should encounter smaller online risks to help prepare them to handle bigger risks, according to a study by researchers at Pennsylvania State University. "Our stance is that teens will inevitably be exposed to some level of online risk; thus, they need to learn how to deal with it before the risk becomes too great," the researchers wrote. 82% of the study participants reported at least one "risk event." On average they reported about three risk events during the study; the range was from zero to 15. The most common type — reported by 74% of participants — was exposure to explicit content, which in two-thirds of the incidents occurred accidentally. 15% reported online harassment, 24 percent information breaches and 28% at least one sexual solicitation.
     The teen participants seemed to cope with their online problems fairly well by ignoring the content (40% of the time) or leaving the site, confronting the offender or fixing it themselves (47%). They were most likely to communicate with someone else regarding an online harassment incident and least likely to communicate about exposure to explicit content. For online harassment, specifically, 77% of the reports said that teens told their mothers, 11% told their best friends, and 11% reported it to the social media website. 49% were considered resolved by the time the teen recorded their diary entries; 17% were considered "so insignificant" to the teens that they felt no resolution was required.
Wisniewski, P., et al. (2016). Dear diary: Teens reflect on their weekly online risk experiences.  Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, p. 3919-3930
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2858317http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2858317