The Research

National data shows that students are spending between 1-4 hours of instructional time on devices - with a reported 27% of students spend more than five hours of class time each day on their screens.

Lightspeed, a popular technology filtering tool, reports that nationally, the biggest increase in screen use comes in middle school years (6th-8th grade), and that 84% of all students’ screen time occurs during school hours.   

When kids rely on a screen for their schoolwork, it introduces several challenges:

• Cognitive and Physical Fatigue: Prolonged daily interaction with digital displays is frequently linked to digital eye strain, headaches, and increased mental fatigue, which can impact a student's sustained focus.

• Information Retention and Comprehension: Comparative studies indicate that reading print materials and taking notes by hand can lead to higher levels of reading comprehension and long-term information retention when compared to reading and typing on a digital interface.

• Learning Outcomes: A 2022 OECD PISA study found that students who spend more than one hour per day on digital devices at school experience a sharp drop in learning outcomes. On average across OECD countries, students who spent five to seven hours a day on digital devices in school scored 49 points lower in mathematics than peers who used devices for under an hour a day.  In PISA’s standard metric, a 49-point decline is the equivalent of losing roughly two full years of formal schooling.