A study examining the educational outcomes of thousands of Italian schoolchildren found that early adoption of social media correlates with reduced academic performance on standardized assessments. Researchers compared test results in mathematics, Italian, and English among students who opened their first social media accounts at different ages, discovering that those beginning accounts between ages 11 and 12 scored lower than peers who waited until at least age 14.
The magnitude of the performance difference approximated six months of educational development, according to findings published in Nature Human Behaviour. This gap persisted when researchers controlled for numerous confounding variables, including students’ prior academic performance before using social media, family structure, and parental educational attainment. Notably, no performance impact appeared in English language assessments, which researchers suggest may reflect the prevalence of English-language content on social media platforms, providing incidental language exposure.
Dr. Marco Gui of the University of Milano-Bicocca, who led the research, identified frequent phone-checking habits as a significant predictor of academic performance differences, suggesting that constant notifications and the compulsion to monitor social media interactions throughout the day may interfere with sustained attention and homework engagement. Researchers theorize that the continuous state of heightened alertness generated by smartphone-based social media may reduce cognitive resources available for educational tasks and diminish presence in physical environments.
The findings emerge as several jurisdictions consider regulatory approaches to youth social media use. While Gui expressed support for age restrictions on platform access, he characterized such bans as emergency measures and advocated for modifications to platform design to reduce addictive features. Professor Dennis Ougrin of Queen Mary University of London emphasized that evidence does not necessarily support complete prohibition but rather supports helping young people develop healthy engagement patterns with social media.
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