Corresponding Author: Sadat Qureshi
Smartphones have quietly become part of daily routines for many Indian families, so schoolchildren often spend several hours on screens each day, frequently for videos, games, or social media rather than schoolwork. This raises practical questions about how such habits might affect thinking skills while the brain is still developing.
We examined whether daily screen time is associated with children's performance in areas such as attention, word reasoning, information-processing speed, and overall cognitive ability.
From November 2023 to April 2025, we invited 300 children from pediatric clinics and local schools in a semi-urban part of Haryana to join. Parents told us about their child’s usual screen use over the past week. We measured cognitive skills using adapted parts of standard intelligence scales suitable for Indian children. We also noted family income level, parents’ education, how long children slept at night, and how much time they spent playing outside. We examined links with correlations, group comparisons and regression models that took other influences into account.
Children spent an average of 3.4 ± 1.2 hours on screens daily, and 42% went over three hours; most of this time was recreational. Overall cognitive scores sat at 89.6 ± 13.4 on standard scales. Longer screen time was associated with lower scores, especially when daily use exceeded three hours. The pattern stayed visible even after we considered family background, parents’ schooling and sleep length. Attention, verbal reasoning and speed of processing showed the clearest connections.
In this group of Indian school children, more daily screen time—mainly for fun rather than learning—was tied to weaker performance across several thinking areas. Simple steps toward better balance at home and school could help, and longer studies would show whether changes in habits make a real difference over time.