Longitudinal effect of early social media use on standardized learning outcomes during school career.

Authors

Marco Gui, Chiara Respi, Giovanni Abbiati, Cristiana Paladini, Sofia Ercolanoni, Francesca Milzani, Tiziana Pirola, Giovanni Vezzoli

Published in

Nature human behaviour. Aug 03, 2026. Epub Aug 03, 2026.

Abstract

This study uses difference-in-differences models to evaluate the impact of early social media use on academic performance among children aged 7-16 years. A dataset comprising 5,227 students from northern Italy was constructed by merging data from a questionnaire on lifetime digital media habits with longitudinal standardized test scores in Italian, English and mathematics. Participants who created a personal social media account in 6th, 7th or 8th grade were separately matched with late adopters who initiated their first social media account in the 9th grade or later. The findings provide compelling evidence that early engagement with social media adversely affects learning outcomes. Additional findings on the effects of early social media use on other academic outcomes for which we do not have longitudinal data are in line with our main findings. We also find supporting evidence that a substantial part of this negative effect is mediated by students' smartphone pervasiveness in key moments of the day.

PMID:
42547534
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 04 Aug 2026.

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