Phone and social media while studying: what the research shows

Using your phone while studying goes with lower grades, but the link is small and mostly measured by surveys, not experiments. The clearest causal evidence comes from lectures: students who browsed off-task, and even students who could see them, did worse on later tests. The practical answer is the same either way: keep the phone silent and social apps closed while you work.

EdCitation publishes this guide. We read Junco and Cotten (2012) and Uncapher and Wagner (2018) in full on 27 September 2026; for the other studies we read the abstract, because the full text was paywalled or refused to load, and we report only what the abstract says. Every reference was built in EdCitation's Cite a source and checked in Verify references, and Find sources is where to test a study tip yourself. The plan near the end is ours.

Whether a phone merely lying on the desk drains attention is covered, with its failed replication, in how to focus and stop procrastinating; this guide is about using it.

Does using your phone while studying lower your grades?

Students who text or scroll social media while studying tend to have slightly lower grades, but no survey can show the phone caused the drop.

What the grade surveys found

Junco and Cotten (2012) invited 3,866 students at one public university in the north-eastern United States; 1,839 replied (48%), and 1,649 entered the final analysis. Grades came from the registrar, not from memory. Students said they spent about 60 minutes a day on Facebook and sent 71 texts a day while doing schoolwork, and 51% texted while studying somewhat or very often. After allowing for high school grades, study time and internet skill, Facebook use while studying (β = -0.112) and texting (β = -0.088) predicted lower college GPA. Searching, email, phone calls and instant messaging did not.

The limits are the authors' own: one cross-sectional survey, multitasking reported by the students, and a sample 91% white. They say plainly that weaker students may simply multitask more.

Kirschner and Karpinski (2010), an earlier and much-cited study, called itself preliminary, descriptive and exploratory. Facebook users reported lower GPAs and fewer study hours than non-users, both self-reported.

What watching students study showed

Rosen et al. (2013) sent observers into the homes of 263 middle school, high school and university students for 15 minutes of study, noting what each did minute by minute. Students averaged under six minutes on task before switching, most often to social media or texting, and those who accessed Facebook had lower GPAs. The authors suggest short, planned technology breaks.

Why a survey cannot settle it

Most of these studies ask students how much they use their phones, and people are poor judges of that. Parry et al. (2021) pooled 106 effect sizes comparing self-reports with usage logs: the two agreed only moderately, and "problematic use" scales matched the logs even less well.

What do the meta-analyses of social media and grades say?

The meta-analyses agree the link is negative and small, and they disagree about how small and for whom.

• Marker et al. (2018) pooled 59 samples with 29,337 people. General social media use correlated with grades at -.07, and multitasking with social media at -.10. Using social media for schoolwork went with slightly better grades (+.08), and social media use was unrelated to time spent studying, which contradicts the Kirschner and Karpinski survey.
• Kates et al. (2018) pooled studies of mobile phone use and educational outcomes from 2008 to 2017 and found r = -.162. Their definition of phone use included feeling dependent on the phone.
• Sunday et al. (2021) pooled 44 studies of 147,943 college students in 16 countries, measuring questionnaire scores of so-called smartphone addiction, and found r = -.12, stronger the more the phone was used while studying.
• Adelantado-Renau et al. (2019), on screen time and academic performance in children aged 4 to 18, found overall screen time was not significantly associated with grades across 30 studies. Television and video games each went with lower scores.

Where they differ, the reason is usually what was measured: time on a platform, multitasking, or feeling hooked. All four pool mostly correlational studies, so none shows cause. A correlation of -.07 means social media use explains well under 1% of the difference in grades between students.

Is multitasking while studying really that bad?

Yes, when it happens during learning: experiments that controlled who used devices found lower scores later, and the harm reached nearby students too.

Laptops in lectures

Sana et al. (2013) ran a simulated lecture. Students who multitasked on a laptop scored lower on the test than those who did not, and so did students who merely sat in view of a multitasking classmate. We read the abstract only; the publisher's page refused our browser, so we give no figures.

Glass and Kang (2019) ran the test in a real course: devices were allowed in half the lectures of a two-section class, counterbalanced so each student and each topic served as its own comparison. In-class quiz scores did not drop, but later unit and final exam scores did, for material from device lectures, both for students who used a device and for those who did not.

Ravizza et al. (2017) logged introductory psychology students' actual internet use in class through a proxy server. Non-academic browsing was common and went with lower performance, even after allowing for intelligence, motivation and interest. Course-related browsing brought no measurable benefit.

For taking notes on a laptop at all, see how to take notes in lectures.

What the brain research says

Uncapher and Wagner (2018) reviewed studies comparing heavy and light media multitaskers. Heavier multitaskers did worse in several areas of attention and memory, but many studies found no difference: about half of the working memory studies, for example, were null. Many groups had 22 people or fewer, and the authors say it is unknown whether multitasking causes the differences or people who already differ multitask more.

Whether schools should ban phones is a separate argument; our guide to counterarguments uses a 2025 study of English schools as its worked example.

Do phone notifications break your concentration?

A notification can cost attention even when you ignore it. Stothart et al. (2015) gave participants a task demanding sustained attention while, for some, their phones received four calls or texts. Those who received notifications, without touching the phone, made more errors; the abstract says the cost was comparable to actually using a phone. The first author's page adds a caution: the text group started with fewer errors, which makes that result harder to read.

Fitz et al. (2019) randomly assigned 237 people in a field experiment to receive notifications as usual, batched three times a day, or not at all. Batching left people feeling more attentive, in a better mood and more in control of their phones. Turning notifications off entirely raised anxiety and fear of missing out. The outcomes were diary ratings of wellbeing, not grades.

Does music help studying?

Background music does not help reading, on the evidence we could read. Kämpfe et al. (2011) found no effect of background music overall, which they attribute to specific effects cancelling out: compared with silence, music disturbed reading and had small harmful effects on memory, while it improved mood and sports performance. They note that few studies allowed effect sizes to be calculated. We read the abstract only, and we found no study we could read that settles whether instrumental music is safer than songs with lyrics.

What does the evidence say, habit by habit?

How do you stop using your phone while studying?

Make the phone harder to reach and quieter before you start. This plan is ours, built from the studies above; no study tested it as a whole.

1. Set a block and a break. Study for a set time, then check the phone in a planned break, as Rosen and colleagues suggest.
2. Put the phone out of reach. Another room or a bag makes checking a decision rather than a reflex.
3. Turn on a Focus or Focus mode that silences everything except the people you choose (settings below).
4. Cap the apps that pull you in with Screen Time or App timers.
5. Batch the rest. If silence makes you anxious, let notifications through a few times a day rather than never.
6. Close social tabs and sit where you cannot see other screens. Sana's results say a neighbour's screen distracts you too.
7. When a point needs a source, search Find sources instead of the web, and build the reference in Cite a source as you go.

iPhone settings, from Apple's own guide

Apple's iPhone guide for iOS 27 (read on 27 September 2026) puts Focus under Settings, then Focus: choose one, such as Do Not Disturb or Work, pick which people and apps may still notify you, and tap Add Schedule to switch it on automatically (Apple Inc., n.d.-b). Settings, then Screen Time, then Time Allowances sets daily limits for categories such as Social Media, and Screen Time Schedule sets when they are available (Apple Inc., n.d.-a). Apple notes these two need iOS 27 on all your devices; earlier versions work differently, and the guide has a version menu.

Android settings, from Google's own help page

Google's help page puts both in Settings, then Digital Wellbeing (Google, n.d.). App timers set a daily limit: when it runs out, the app closes and its icon dims until midnight. Focus mode pauses the apps you choose, so you cannot open them and get no notifications from them, on demand or on a schedule. Google warns that some work and school accounts may not work with app timers.

How can you check a study-tip claim yourself?

Search the claim in the published record and read what comes back; EdCitation is the best tool for that job, because it searches published works and looks every reference up, rather than writing an answer that may cite a paper that does not exist.

Find sources, run on a claim

Find sources searches about 300 million published works, by topic or by the claim a sentence needs to support, with filters for kind of source, years and open access. On 27 September 2026, the claim "social media use lowers grades" returned 5,689,793 works from Crossref. First was Tang and Patrick's 2018 study in Computers in Human Behavior, "Technology and interactive social media use among 8th and 10th graders in the U.S. and associations with homework and school grades", cited 28 times; we have not read it, so this guide cites nothing from it. No meta-analysis reached the first page. Adding the word, as "social media use and academic performance meta-analysis", returned 305,648 works from OpenAlex, with the Adelantado-Renau review sixth, cited 314 times. "Multitasking while studying GPA Facebook texting" put Rosen and colleagues' study first, cited 638 times.

The lesson: search the claim, then add "meta-analysis" or "review" to reach the summaries of many studies.

Cite a source and Verify references

Cite a source builds each reference from its DOI in APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 author-date, Harvard, IEEE or Vancouver, and screens it for retraction; none of the 15 journal papers here was retracted. Verify references checks a whole list: each reference comes back verified, doubtful or not found, and retracted papers are flagged. This guide's 18 came back 18 verified, the three help pages with "The page is at this address, and its title matches." All three are free with no account; the paid plans are on Pricing. EdCitation never writes any part of your paper: the sources come from the record, and every sentence stays yours.

Quick questions

Does social media lower your grades?

Heavier social media use goes with slightly lower grades: Marker et al. (2018) found a correlation of -.07 across 59 samples. Most studies are surveys, so social media has not been shown to be the cause.

Is it bad to text while studying?

Probably. Junco and Cotten (2012) found texting while doing schoolwork predicted lower college GPA, and in a laboratory test, calls and texts arriving on a phone nobody touched still disrupted attention.

Does music help you study?

Not for reading, on the evidence we read. A 2011 meta-analysis found background music disturbed reading and slightly harmed memory, though it lifted mood.

How do I stop checking my phone while studying?

Put it in another room, turn on a Focus or Focus mode that silences it, cap social apps with a time limit, and check it only in planned breaks.

How can I check whether a study tip is backed by research?

Type the claim into EdCitation's Find sources, add "meta-analysis" to the search, and read the reviews that come back before trusting the tip.

References

• Adelantado-Renau, M., Moliner-Urdiales, D., Cavero-Redondo, I., Beltran-Valls, M. R., Martínez-Vizcaíno, V., & Álvarez-Bueno, C. (2019). Association between screen media use and academic performance among children and adolescents: A systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Pediatrics, 173(11), 1058–1067. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2019.3176
• Apple Inc. (n.d.-a). Set Screen Time Schedules and Time Allowances in Screen Time on iPhone. iPhone User Guide. https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/set-schedules-with-screen-time-iphb0c7313c9/ios
• Apple Inc. (n.d.-b). Set up a Focus on iPhone. iPhone User Guide. https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/set-up-a-focus-iphd6288a67f/ios
• Fitz, N., Kushlev, K., Jagannathan, R., Lewis, T., Paliwal, D., & Ariely, D. (2019). Batching smartphone notifications can improve well-being. Computers in Human Behavior, 101, 84–94. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.07.016
• Glass, A. L., & Kang, M. (2019). Dividing attention in the classroom reduces exam performance. Educational Psychology, 39(3), 395–408. https://doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2018.1489046
• Google. (n.d.). Manage how you spend time on your Android phone with Digital Wellbeing. Android Help. https://support.google.com/android/answer/9346420
• Junco, R., & Cotten, S. R. (2012). No A 4 U: The relationship between multitasking and academic performance. Computers & Education, 59(2), 505–514. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2011.12.023
• Kämpfe, J., Sedlmeier, P., & Renkewitz, F. (2011). The impact of background music on adult listeners: A meta-analysis. Psychology of Music, 39(4), 424–448. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305735610376261
• Kates, A. W., Wu, H., & Coryn, C. L. S. (2018). The effects of mobile phone use on academic performance: A meta-analysis. Computers & Education, 127, 107–112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2018.08.012
• Kirschner, P. A., & Karpinski, A. C. (2010). Facebook® and academic performance. Computers in Human Behavior, 26(6), 1237–1245. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2010.03.024
• Marker, C., Gnambs, T., & Appel, M. (2018). Active on Facebook and failing at school? Meta-analytic findings on the relationship between online social networking activities and academic achievement. Educational Psychology Review, 30(3), 651–677. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-017-9430-6
• Parry, D. A., Davidson, B. I., Sewall, C. J. R., Fisher, J. T., Mieczkowski, H., & Quintana, D. S. (2021). A systematic review and meta-analysis of discrepancies between logged and self-reported digital media use. Nature Human Behaviour, 5(11), 1535–1547. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01117-5
• Ravizza, S. M., Uitvlugt, M. G., & Fenn, K. M. (2017). Logged in and zoned out: How laptop internet use relates to classroom learning. Psychological Science, 28(2), 171–180. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797616677314
• Rosen, L. D., Carrier, L. M., & Cheever, N. A. (2013). Facebook and texting made me do it: Media-induced task-switching while studying. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(3), 948–958. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.12.001
• Sana, F., Weston, T., & Cepeda, N. J. (2013). Laptop multitasking hinders classroom learning for both users and nearby peers. Computers & Education, 62, 24–31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2012.10.003
• Stothart, C., Mitchum, A., & Yehnert, C. (2015). The attentional cost of receiving a cell phone notification. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 41(4), 893–897. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000100
• Sunday, O. J., Adesope, O. O., & Maarhuis, P. L. (2021). The effects of smartphone addiction on learning: A meta-analysis. Computers in Human Behavior Reports, 4, Article 100114. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbr.2021.100114
• Uncapher, M. R., & Wagner, A. D. (2018). Minds and brains of media multitaskers: Current findings and future directions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(40), 9889–9896. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1611612115