In many countries and regions, school is starting again. In many of these places, there will be fewer screens in classrooms and the hallways of those schools than last year. I’m not necessarily sad about this trend, but screen time remains a sensitive topic. Parents, teachers, and policymakers often worry that excessive time spent on social media or playing video games is detrimental to academic performance. Indeed, research generally shows (usually smaller) negative correlations between screen time and academic performance. Last week, I read this BBC news report that already brought some nuance. A new, large-scale American study (Hales & Hampton, 2025) now invites us to shift our perspective a bit, with the necessary nuances.
Beyond Screen Time: Digital Skills Matter
The researchers followed more than 2,500 secondary school students, examining not only the time they spent online but also the digital skills they acquired. Their conclusion is surprising: yes, social media is associated with slightly lower scores, especially for girls. But that effect is small and often completely offset by something else: the digital skills young people acquire during that online “freewheeling.” These skills—think information seeking, using online tools, and communication—prove to be a much stronger predictor of better academic performance than the disadvantages of screen time.
Different Outcomes for Boys and Girls
What’s striking is that boys seem to gain more in this respect than girls. Primarily through gaming and web browsing, they develop digital skills that support their reading and writing, thus reducing traditional learning gaps. For girls, the benefits are less pronounced, and sometimes even nonexistent. This is related to their preference for social media, which apparently fosters fewer digital skills than gaming. The research therefore suggests that screen time has uneven returns: depending on what young people do online and existing gender patterns, different outcomes emerge.
And here’s the interesting angle: we often view screen time in terms of displacement. Every hour of gaming or scrolling supposedly replaces an hour of homework or reading. However, this study reveals that this perspective is too narrow. Just as outdoor play used to help develop resilience and social skills, unstructured online activity can develop digital skills that are at least as relevant today.
Important Nuances and Limitations
However, we must remain cautious with these conclusions. The study—like many studies in this area—is cross-sectional and therefore cannot demonstrate causal relationships: it’s equally possible that strong students also acquire digital skills more quickly. Moreover, the sample is drawn from a single US state, which limits its generalizability. The data on screen time and digital skills are also, as is often the case, based on self-reporting, while we know that young people don’t always accurately assess their own media use. And above all, the research focuses exclusively on academic performance. The potential negative effects of screen time on sleep and mental well-being are not considered.
All this doesn’t change the fact that the study adds an important nuance to the debate. Perhaps the real question isn’t how much time young people spend on their screens, but what exactly they do there—and how we can utilise those experiences to strengthen digital skills, as those skills appear to be important not only for the future, but also for their academic performance today.
Abstract of the study:
Concerns about the detrimental effects of screen time on adolescents’ academic achievement are widespread. However, this perspective often overlooks the potential educational benefits of online leisure time, and gender differences in online and offline activities. We examine the relationship between digital media use (social media, video games, etc.), digital skills, and standardized test scores (SAT) in a sample of 2,582 students in grades 8-11. Using path analysis, we find a compensatory mechanism. Like unstructured time spent in-person with peers, time spent on social media has a small, negative, direct relationship to academic achievement. However, unlike time spent in-person, digital activities offset the small, negative relationship to achievement with a larger, positive, indirect relationship through digital skills. Notably, boys benefit more than girls in reading and writing from unstructured digital media use, with little difference in math. This potentially mitigates some gender-based achievement gaps. Gender differences are tied to media preferences and the relationship between different digital activities and different digital skills. These findings challenge the simplistic view that unstructured leisure time spent on digital media is inherently harmful or unproductive. We underscore the need for shifts in policy and parenting practices to recognize the benefits of casual leisure and unstructured time with peers, both online and offline, for learning and development.