Rethinking “screen time”: How online play boosts students’ academic skills

Public conversations about “screen time” in adolescence often start and end with worry that time online must be stealing attention from school.

Our recently published paper, co-authored with Keith Hampton, asks a different question: what if some of that unstructured time on social media, video games, and general web browsing builds skills that help students do better in school?

We find evidence of a compensatory mechanism. The “harms” of social media use on academic achievement are more than offset by larger positive, indirect relationships that run through digital skills, especially for boys, and particularly in reading and writing.

Background and motivation

For decades, youth unstructured and leisure time has shifted from unsupervised “free play” toward adult-organized activities, such as organized sports, school-sanctioned and/or led extracurriculars. Digital leisure, such as time spent on social media and video games, has been treated by many as the latest distraction.

However, casual, self-directed use and online exploration can cultivate transferable skills and abilities, particularly among adolescent students. These abilities, which we measure as “digital skills,” track closely with academic competencies and testing across reading, writing, and math domains.

Primary findings

1. Direct effects between screen time (specifically, social media) and academic achievement are small and specific.

More time on social media shows a small negative direct association with achievement (for girls, in reading, writing, and math; for boys, in writing only). No other digital activities show robust direct downsides.

2. Digital skills are strong, consistent predictors of adolescent achievement.

A one-standard-deviation increase in social media skills corresponds to ~4–5 percentile gains in reading and writing and ~3 in math; internet skills also predict gains, though somewhat smaller. In several domains, the influence of digital skills approaches that of GPA.

3. Digital leisure helps build those skills.

Web browsing and gaming are linked to higher internet skills for both girls and boys, with stronger returns for boys. Social media use is linked to higher social media skills for both, though again more strongly for boys.

4. The indirect pathway (connecting screen time to achievement through skills) is positive, and often larger than the direct downside.

Time spent on social media, web browsing, and gaming is indirectly associated with higher SAT scores because it boosts digital skills. For boys, the indirect benefits are substantial in reading and writing as well as math; for girls, the benefits are positive but smaller.

5. Net effect of connectivity on achievement is positive for boys across domains, but mixed for girls.

When we combine direct and indirect paths, boys show a net positive association between digital media use and scores in all three subjects. For girls, the net effect is neutral in reading and writing (indirect benefits offset small direct downsides) and modestly positive in math.

Gender gaps in online & academic skills

Common stereotypes predict “gaming helps boys in math” and “social media helps girls in reading.” We find something more nuanced. Yes, boys’ heavier engagement with games and the open web appears to drive larger gains in broadly useful digital skills. But those skills relate not just to math; they also map onto reading and writing. The result is a potential narrowing of gender gaps in literacy, with only a small reinforcement of boys’ edge in math. That said, girls’ returns from the same activities are smaller—likely reflecting differences in what they do online, for how long, and which skills those activities cultivate.

Our methodology

We surveyed 2,582 students in grades 8–11 across 13 rural Michigan school districts (spring 2019). We combined self-reports of typical weekday media use (social media, web browsing, video games, TV/video), validated indices of internet and social media skills, and district-provided SAT Suite scores in math, reading, and writing (percentiles). Using a path model, we tested both:

• Direct links from time on each digital activity to SAT scores; and

• Indirect links that run from time on activities → digital skills → SAT scores.

Testing for gender differences: We ran the model separately for girls and boys to probe gender differences, while adjusting for socioeconomic factors, GPA, homework completion, accommodations (IEP), and home internet access. Inaccessible or missing data were addressed via multiple imputation.

Figure: Simplified model of the analyzed direct and sum of direct and indirect (‘total’) relationships between digital media use, digital skills, and academic achievement.

Key takeaways

The debate about adolescent screens has been stuck on the minutes substracted, or stolen from schoolwork. However, our findings point to a more nuanced story of addition.

We find evidence that when adolescents use the internet to explore, make, coordinate, and play, they practice and develop the very competencies that standardized tests and other measures of youth achievement reward. When considering these skillsets, the so-called “harms” of screen time are non-existent, and actually prove to be beneficial for many, particularly for boys.

Recommended citation

Hales, G. E., & Hampton, K. N. (2025). Rethinking screen time and academic achievement: Gender differences and the hidden benefit of online leisure through digital skills. Information, Communication & Society, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2025.2516542