Studies increasingly show that how kids are using screens is more important than the exact amount of time they’re spending on them – and parents and caregivers tend to know what’s best for their families.

A couple weeks back I did a LIVE interview with Local 4 Detroit News about a paper myself and Dr. Keith Hampton published in Information, Communication & Society in June (2025) about adolescent screen time, academic achievement, and digital skills (find the full-text here or, for a brief overview, see my blog post here).

Conversations about adolescent “screen time” often start and end with worry: time online must be stealing attention from school. Our new study 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?

An overview of our study assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on home Internet connectivity, student achievement, and adolescent well-being for students across 18 schools, surveyed in 2019 to 2022. The focus is on middle and high school students enrolled in rural and small-town schools.