New Study Finds High Screen Time is Linked to Lower Academic Achievement

If you’ve been keeping up with us over the last few months, you’ll know that we’ve been singing the praises of going screen-free for some time. From our Screen-Free Mondays social media campaign during the summer holidays, to our back-to-school blogs around the benefits of handwriting and offline learning, we’re all for tried-and-tested learning techniques that bring pen and paper to the fore. 

Never far away from the news, a recent paper published in JAMA Paediatrics by Elizabeth Al-Jbouri et al. has got everyone talking about the potentially damaging effects of screen time on children again. The study brought together 23 meta-analyses covering approximately 2.8 million children and teenagers across 64 countries, finding that screen time was associated with poorer outcomes in school achievement, language development, and emotional and behavioural difficulties. Crucially the paper does not establish causation, only that screen time is associated with poorer outcomes and those associations were small. Nevertheless, this umbrella review has understandably renewed concerns among parents and schools about what can be done to reduce screen time both at home and in school.

Why Does Screen Time Matter?

The short answer to this question is that we don’t exactly know yet. Studies, such as the recent Al-Jbouri umbrella review, often do not reliably distinguish between different types of screen use, making it difficult to pinpoint causes, and what should and shouldn’t be avoided. What we do know is that screen time is likely to affect different age groups in different ways. For example, excessive screen use in primary age children may stunt the development of natural self-soothing and social sharing skills, while similarly excessive screen use in teenagers may expose them to digital bullying and online harassment. The ways that children engage with screens changes over time making this a difficult question to answer with any degree of confidence.

As well as the recent JAMA Paediatrics paper identifying lower academic achievement, high screen use both in and out of school has been associated with impaired executive functioning, speech and language delays, eyesight strain, sedentary habits and sleep loss, and poorer mental health, so it’s clear there’s a lot at stake when it comes to children and their screen use.

What is the Government Doing to Address the Risks of Excessive Screen Use?

The UK government has significantly tightened regulations around device usage in education through some major legislative updates. As you’ll know if you’ve been following us, the Department for Education (DfE) now requires schools to be mobile phone-free environments during the entire school day. How schools meet this requirement is up to them and may include lockable pouches, morning collection, or a strict ‘bagged and off’ rule. We strongly believe that phone pouch systems offer the most practical balance between safeguarding, focus, and convenience for schools, which is why we introduced RHINO Phone Pouch® to help create safer, more social, and more focused school settings.

More widely, the DfE, the Department for Health and Social Care and MPs announced the first government guidance on healthy screen use for children aged 5-16 in June 2026. The guidance was informed by a three-week call for evidence and an independent expert group co-chaired by Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza and Professor Russell Viner. However, the DfE’s latest progress statement entitled ‘Growing up in the online world’published in September, says it is developing guidance including age-appropriate principles from primary age all the way through to 18-years-old. Importantly, this guidance will also consult on the safety of AI tools and educational technology used in schools, setting a Classroom Safety Standard, and ensuring such tools are child-safe and evidence-based before deployment. The new guidelines will build on existing strict early years rules (ages 2-5) that mandate a maximum of one hour of daily screen time and ban autoplay, background screens, and short-form algorithmic scrolling.

Finally, the UK government’s proposed ban on social media for under-16s is expected to come into force in spring 2027. While the final list of platforms has not been announced, it’s likely to include Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook, YouTube and X. The UK legislation is intended to go further than the existing Australian ban by also restricting harmful functions beyond social media apps such as livestreaming and communication with strangers. 

Looking to the Future

With so much research and legislation in the offing, we’re excited to see how children’s wellbeing and development improves over the next few years. This vital and important re-examination of how unfettered access to digital media affects our youngest citizens is a watershed moment in history – one we’ll be happy to support schools with through RHINO Phone Pouch® and our exercise books, pads and paper!

Find out more about how schools across Europe are cutting back on digital learning in our recent blog: Why the World is Reaching for Paper Again

Discover more about RHINO Phone Pouch®, here.

Explore our range of high-quality, sustainable School Exercise Books, here.

REFERENCES

Al-Jbouri E, Nivison MD, Neville RD, Marsh A, McArthur BA, Christakis DA, Fearon P, Madigan S. Screen Use and Child and Adolescent Development and Mental Health Outcomes: A Quantitative Umbrella Review. JAMA Pediatrics. Published online September 28, 2026. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2026.4339pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih+1