Does Social Media Affect Academic Performance? What Parents Should Know

Yes, early social media access may hurt academic performance. A 2026 study found that students who opened a personal social media account around ages 11 to 13 made less progress in maths and their main school language than similar students who waited until about 14.

That does not mean every child with Instagram or TikTok will get worse grades. It does mean the old reassurance that "there is only a correlation" is getting harder to lean on. This study followed the same students across several school years and compared their results before and after they joined social media.

What the new social media study found

The peer-reviewed paper was published in Nature Human Behaviour on 3 August 2026. Researchers surveyed students in northern Italy about when they received a personal smartphone and opened their first social media profile. They matched those answers to standardised Italian, maths and English tests taken in grades 2, 5, 8 and 10.

The researchers compared children who opened an account in grade 6, 7 or 8 with children who waited until grade 9 or later. In age terms, that is roughly 11 to 14 versus 14 and over. The table shows the difference in grade 10 scores after the groups were matched on earlier results and family background.

SD means standard deviation, a way researchers compare scores measured on different tests. The useful part is the pattern: the earlier the personal account arrived, the wider the later gap tended to be. For grade 6 starters, the difference by grade 10 was 0.22 standard deviations in Italian and 0.27 in maths.

The "six months of learning" line is likely to become the headline. Keep its footnote attached. The paper says there is no official conversion between these Italian scores and years of schooling. Some education researchers use 0.4 standard deviations as a rough year, which is how the authors arrived at six months.

The study found no effect on English. The authors suggest that Italian students may have picked up some English from the material they saw online, but they are clear that this is only one possible explanation.

How strong is the evidence?

This is better evidence than asking students about last term's grades and last week's screen time. The researchers had test scores from before social media entered the picture. They then matched early and later users on previous achievement, parental education, family structure, financial hardship, earlier technology access and other characteristics.

They used a method called difference-in-differences. In plain English, they checked whether two groups that had been following similar academic paths began to separate after one group opened social accounts. The results for students who started in grade 6 or 7 survived several robustness checks.

The fairest wording is that the findings are consistent with a causal negative effect, especially when personal accounts arrive around ages 11 to 13. "Social media definitely causes bad grades" goes further than this study can support.

How does social media affect grades in school?

The study did not find one neat cause. Its strongest clue was "smartphone pervasiveness", which means checking the phone during homework, at school, around meals, before sleep and soon after waking.

Social media can affect study habits when notifications and task-switching interrupt homework, or late-night scrolling cuts into sleep.

In an exploratory analysis, pervasiveness explained 33% to 47% of the maths relationship and 15% to 34% of the Italian relationship, depending on when the account was opened. That part of the analysis was correlational, so those percentages should not be read as proof. They do point toward a familiar problem: learning needs uninterrupted attention, while social apps make interruption effortless.

The American Academy of Pediatrics' 2026 policy reaches a similar practical conclusion. It links excessive digital media use with weaker attention and lower academic achievement, and warns that endless scroll, autoplay and other engagement features can crowd out sleep, movement and schoolwork.

Does social media always lower grades?

No. Before this paper, two large meta-analyses found only small average negative relationships between general social network use and academic achievement. One covered 30 studies and 21,367 participants. Another covered 59 samples and 29,337 participants. Academic uses of social media even had a small positive association in the second review.

A 2026 OECD analysis of PISA data adds another useful wrinkle. Maths performance was highest among 15-year-olds who reported moderate social media use, while performance declined steadily beyond three hours a day. That pattern is observational, so it does not prove that moderate use raises scores or that heavy use caused the decline.

The new study asks a different question. It is less interested in whether a student used social media for 40 or 80 minutes yesterday. It asks when a personal account first became part of everyday life. Age of first access may capture years of exposure during a period when attention, study routines and self-control are still developing.

What age should kids get social media?

There is no universal birthday when a child becomes ready. The Italian study found the clearest differences for accounts opened around ages 11 to 13, but it did not test a single safe cutoff. Account rules also differ between countries.

For Australian families, there is now a legal starting point. Since 10 December 2025, age-restricted platforms have been required to take reasonable steps to stop Australians under 16 from having accounts. eSafety's current list includes Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook, Reddit and YouTube.

Under-16s and their parents are not fined if an account slips through. Public content that does not require a login may still be viewed. eSafety describes the rule as a delay, which is a useful way to talk about it at home: "not yet", rather than a punishment or a claim that every online interaction is harmful. Our Australian under-16 YouTube and social media guide explains which services and account features are affected.

In the United States, the COPPA rules protect the personal information of children under 13; they are not a recommendation that 13 is the right age for social media. In the European Union, Digital Services Act guidance focuses on safer platform design for minors, while national age rules can differ. Families elsewhere in Europe should check the guidance that applies in their country.

Sixteen is a legal threshold, not a readiness certificate. A teenager who cannot put the phone away for sleep or homework may need a slower start. Another teenager may handle a private account with clear limits and regular conversations. Age matters, but so do habits and the design of the platform they want to join.

A practical plan for parents

You do not need a research lab at home. Start with the places where a feed can interfere with the rest of the day, then make those boundaries boring and predictable.

If you want a concrete starting point, pair a phone-free homework block with overnight charging outside the bedroom. Then check whether schoolwork, sleep and morning mood improve over the next couple of weeks. For device-level steps, see our guide to setting screen-time limits and the age-by-age guide to how much screen time is reasonable.

Falling grades are rarely explained by one app alone. If they arrive with persistent sleep problems, anxiety, withdrawal or a sharp change in behaviour, speak with the school and consider getting advice from a qualified health professional.

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