Screen time linked to lower grades in children, major study finds
A new study has revealed that higher screen usage can lead to lower academic achievement and affect children's socioemotional wellbeing, and a Birmingham headteacher is not surprised.
Last updated 28th Sep 2026
One of the largest ever studies into children's screen use has found that higher levels of exposure can damage a young person's wellbeing in ways just as significant as poverty, parenting behaviours or being born prematurely.
The research, published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, examined data from more than 2.8 million children across 64 countries, making it one of the most comprehensive analyses of the issue to date.
Greater screen exposure was associated with lower overall academic grades and poorer language development. It was also linked to a range of mental health difficulties, including emotional and peer problems.
For Peter Lee, headteacher at the Q3 Academy Langley, Oldbury, the findings confirm something he's noticed in the recent stages of his teaching career:
"I've worked for nearly 25 years in education, and I saw the kind of challenges around being distracted, and the algorithms, and the addictive nature of apps and games, and the social content," he said.
Mr Lee explained how screen use has changed since he started teaching in 2000, when "mobile phones were in their infancy" and the most popular game was 'Snake'.
Comparing today's technological age to his own childhood, he said: "As a kid, we'd wait for the next episode of a particular programme, whereas now we live in this culture where everything is instant gratification."
He also emphasised that the impact of screen use is showing in reception-aged children's behaviour:
"I've got friends who work in primary schools, and they're reporting children turning up who are not toilet trained, who are trying to swipe a reading book because they treat it like an iPad or a tablet device.
"I think that's a real challenge for us in education and the sector — and that's obviously only going to get worse as the children move into secondary."
Led by academics at the University of Calgary in Canada, the study was an "umbrella review" — pulling together the results of numerous previous large-scale reviews rather than conducting new research from scratch.
They concluded that, unlike poverty or birth circumstances, screen use is something that people have the power to change.