By Lucy Carroll and Robyn Grace
Teenagers who spend more than an hour each day on social media and browsing the internet are likely to achieve lower test scores than those who have limits on their usage.
As parents grapple with how to manage their children’s screen time, a global report has revealed Australian students are among the world’s biggest users of digital devices at school, spending about four hours a day on technology.
About 40 per cent of students in Australia report being distracted by digital devices in their maths lessons.Credit: iStock
Data from the latest Programme for International Student Assessment shows students who spend more than an hour on weekdays sharing content on social media or browsing the internet score up to 20 points lower in maths than those who clock up an hour or less.
Australian students are spending more time on screens during the school day compared with most other OECD nations, with students spending up to three hours a day learning and another hour on devices for leisure at school.
PISA surveys 15-year-old students, with the latest data collected in 2022. Academic results released in December showed Australian teens had fallen more than a full academic year behind those who went to school in the early 2000s.
Andreas Schleicher, OECD director for education and skills, said technology was evolving at an extremely rapid pace but whether it was good or bad depended on how it was used.
“This is a field that we need to study in much more careful and cautious ways than we have done in the past,” he said at a briefing this week on digital devices in schools. “It’s time for us to take a more deliberate approach when it comes to technology.”
Pasi Sahlberg, professor in educational leadership at the University of Melbourne, said schools had spent the past decade rapidly rolling out technology in classrooms without significant evidence to support the change.
He said advice from health authorities and organisations like the OECD suggested keeping children’s use of screen-based devices to a minimum on school days.
“All schools, but especially primary schools, need to be aware of what adding screen time in students’ daily activities during school days may come with,” he said, adding that homework for primary aged children “should be mostly something kids can do without tech”.
“The OECD has warned excessive use of digital devices for leisure at school can negatively impact students’ academic performance. It is also fair to say that tech alone is not a solution that would automatically improve children’s learning and wellbeing.”
Sahlberg said data from the Growing Up Digital Australia study found about half of parents surveyed hoped that schools would partner with them in helping their children to better self-regulate their digital habits. Teachers said they would welcome more support from parents to do the same.
“My suggestion is this for primary schools is whenever there are alternative ways to using digital screens to teach and learn, choose them,” he said.
About 98 per cent of 15-year-old students in OECD countries have a smartphone of their own at home. In Australia, there are on average 1.2 computers available per student in schools and one in three students has access to tablet devices.
The PISA report showed students who spent one to five hours per day on devices for learning at school achieved 20 points higher in maths than those who spent no time on devices.
But students who spent between five and seven hours daily on screens for learning at school scored 12 points lower. And those who spent more than one hour on devices for leisure while at school scored more than nine points less than those who spent no time.
Students using devices in lessons are also tempted to multitask, shift their attention to other information or browse the internet for non-academic activities, the report said.
The 2022 data is based on OECD testing and surveys taken by about 690,000 students aged 15 from 81 countries, including 13,500 from Australia. Surveys were taken from maths classes, but the OECD said excessive screen use could also negatively affect results in other subjects.
Lotta Edholm, Sweden’s Minister for Schools, told the OECD briefing that her country was backing away from hyper-digitised classrooms and reverting to traditional textbooks and libraries, particularly for younger children.
She said studies had shown the basic skills of reading and writing were best developed using physical books, writing with pen and paper.
“Students use of screens in schools must be limited,” she said. “We start too early introducing screens and we see all those negative effects.”
Nearly one in three students on average across OECD countries reported being distracted using digital devices in most or every mathematics lesson. In Australia, that figure was 40 per cent, while one in 10 teenagers feel pressured to be online and answer messages when in class.
This week’s report shows students who spend more than an hour each weekday browsing social networks, sharing content on social media or using the internet for fun, scored between five and 20 points lower in maths.
Video games also affect performance, depending on the game. Collaborative online games are negatively associated with students’ results, as they may be more likely to play for excessively long periods. Single-player games can relate to a performance advantage, particularly for those who played only occasionally.
Authorities in Australia are considering restricting social media for children under 16 and schools in NSW and Victoria have banned smartphones.
However, the OECD said banning smartphones in schools can limit distractions, but rules need to be effectively enforced.
Glenn Fahey from the Centre for Independent Studies said the challenge for education policymakers was trying to “walk the fine line between constructive and destructive” use of technology.
“No one wants to go back to the Stone Age, but teachers can struggle with how to use it best,” he said.
One regional NSW public high school teacher, who spoke anonymously to talk freely, said it could be difficult to ensure students to stay on task when they were on laptops.
“I worry their attention span is getting shorter. When we have laptops in class it is hard to watch everyone at all times unless I stand at the back of the classroom,” the high school teacher said.
“There are times it can be helpful, like for a video or research, but with screens distracting them they often aren’t as ready to have discussions and talk through ideas.”
ACU digital literacies expert Associate Professor Laura Scholes said the OECD found in 2015 that countries that had invested heavily in technology had shown no signs of improvement in reading, maths, or sciences scores.
Among the seven countries with the highest level of internet use in schools, it found three experienced significant declines in reading performance: Australia, New Zealand and Sweden.
Scholes said teens needed clear guidelines about screen usage in schools and homes, but they also needed to be taught sophisticated literacy skills to navigate the digital world.
Matt Bower, an expert in education technology at Macquarie University, said there was screen monitoring software to help teachers and parents manage students’ activity, but it would serve them better to teach them to regulate the use of digital devices.
A spokesperson for the NSW Education Department said the government said the government is investing $2.5 million into a Screen-Related Addiction Research Fund “to provide an evidence base for policies and help parents make informed decisions about devices”.
“If parents have questions about the use of technology at their child’s school they can raise them with the school,” they said.
with Nigel Gladstone