Italian Study Finds Early Social Media Use Cuts Test Scores by Up to 0.27 SD
Updated
Updated · Nature.com · Aug 3
Italian Study Finds Early Social Media Use Cuts Test Scores by Up to 0.27 SD
3 articles · Updated · Nature.com · Aug 3
Summary
A 5,227-student longitudinal study in northern Italy found children who opened social media accounts in grades 6–8 scored lower in Italian and math than peers who waited until grade 9 or later.
Grade-6 adopters showed the biggest losses: by grade 10, math scores were 0.27 standard deviations lower and Italian 0.22 lower—roughly equal to six months of schooling, with earlier adoption linked to larger deficits.
The negative effects appeared across most comparisons in Italian and mathematics, persisted years later, and were also associated with higher grade-repetition risk, lower odds of excellent marks and weaker academic self-efficacy.
English scores did not show a significant hit, while researchers said smartphone pervasiveness—checking phones during homework, before sleep and at school—explained 15% to 47% of the academic effect.
The Nature study adds causal-style evidence to policy debates over youth access rules, noting only 16.3% of students waited until grade 9 despite Italy's legal minimum age of 14 for autonomous platform use.