As schools nationwide grapple with smartphone policies, new research provides unprecedented and shocking insight into how teenagers use their phones during school hours. Using sophisticated tracking technology, researchers discovered that students spend an average of 92 minutes on their smartphones during a typical school day, with a quarter of students exceeding 2 hours of use.
Moving beyond simple screen time measurements, researchers deployed passive sensing technology to paint a detailed picture of how and when adolescents use their phones during the school day. Their findings raise important questions about the role of smartphones in modern education and their potential impact on learning.
Research led by Dr. Dimitri A. Christakis at Seattle Children’s Research Institute found that this school-day phone use accounts for approximately 27% of students’ total daily phone usage, which averages 5.59 hours. More revealing than the raw numbers is how students spend their phone time during school hours.
Social media and messaging dominate school-hour phone use, with Instagram leading social platforms. Instagram users in the study spent an average of about 25 minutes on the platform during school hours alone. Messaging and chat applications averaged 19.5 minutes of use during school hours, while video streaming services claimed about 17 minutes.
Looking at demographic patterns, older teens (ages 16-18) logged significantly more phone time during school hours compared to younger teens (ages 13-15), spending about 33 more minutes on their devices. Female students showed higher usage rates than male students, using their phones approximately 29 minutes more during school hours.
Parental attempts to limit screen time appeared to have little impact on school-hour phone use. Students with parental limits on screen time showed similar usage patterns to those without restrictions, suggesting that school-based interventions might be more effective than home-based rules.
Educational background of parents emerged as a significant factor. Students whose parents held bachelor’s degrees spent about 32 minutes less time on their phones during school hours compared to peers whose parents did not have college degrees. This correlation raises important questions about the role of family educational culture in shaping student technology habits.
The study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, also revealed interesting patterns among different demographic groups. Hispanic students showed significantly higher social media use during school hours compared to their white peers, spending about 25 more minutes on social platforms. Meanwhile, students identifying as LGBTQIA+ showed similar usage patterns to their non-LGBTQIA+ peers, with no statistically significant differences in overall phone use.
While smartphones offer potential benefits for learning and communication, these findings suggest their primary use during school hours may be misaligned with educational goals. More schools are expected to implement phone restrictions in the coming years, with research like this providing valuable data to inform those policy decisions.
Source : https://studyfinds.org/teens-spend-90-minutes-phones-during-school/