OECD PISA 2022 · 81 countries · 690,000 students

690k

students. One question: what is screen time actually doing to us?

Exposition
Distraction in class
Rising action
Scores drop with time
Climax
The sweet spot revealed
Resolution
Connection & belonging

Part 1 — Distraction

Is anyone paying attention?

Researchers asked students in 81 countries if they get distracted in class. Tap the classroom to reveal what they found.

Tap the classroom to reveal →

OECD PISA 2022 · Figure II.3.4 · OECD average

Explore the world 🌍

How distracted is your country?

Search any of the 81 countries and compare to the global average.

📱 Self-distracted
avg 30.5%
👀 Distracted by classmates

OECD PISA 2022 · Figure II.3.4 · 81 countries and economies

Part 2 — Scores

What does screen time do to your marks?

Drag the slider. Pick the activity. Watch the score change. 🔊 Listen too — the pitch reflects the score.

≤1h
Score
480
Baseline
~490
Up to 1 hour is fine — scores are near their peak here!

OECD PISA 2022 · Figure 3 · OECD average maths mean scores

Part 3 — The sweet spot

Not all screen time is equal.

Scroll through the story below — each step reveals a new line on the chart, built with D3.js.

01

Start with learning 📚

When students use devices to study, scores actually rise — peaking around 1–2 hours a day, then plateauing. A little structured screen time helps.

Peak score: ~481 at ≤1hr vs 456 with no device use at all.

02

Add gaming 🎮

Gaming follows a similar early rise — up to 1–3hrs is actually linked to higher scores than no gaming at all. But the drop after 3hrs is sharp.

Best score: ~496 at ≤1hr. Drops to 441 at 7+hrs.

03

Now social media 📲

Social media follows a similar arc early on — but the decline is the steepest of all activities. The heaviest users score dramatically lower than moderate users.

Drops ~72 points from the ≤1hr peak (501) to 7+hrs (429).

04

The full picture 🌐

All four lines together reveal the pattern: there's a sweet spot around 1 hour, after which more time consistently means lower scores — for every activity type.

The green zone marks the sweet spot. Hover any dot for exact scores.

OECD PISA 2022 · Figures 2 & 3 · OECD average maths scores · Chart built with D3.js v7 + Scrollama

Test yourself!

How much did you pick up?

Five questions, all based on real data. No tricks.

Bonus — how do you feel?

It's not just about grades.

The same study asked students how connected they feel at school. Drag and watch the mood shift.

😊
Feeling connected!
Up to 1 hour of leisure — students still feel pretty connected to their school community.
Belonging index: +0.02 (OECD avg)
💛
What is belonging?
PISA asked if students feel liked, happy and like they fit in at school. The index goes from negative (lonely) to positive (connected).
📱
Leisure drops it
Students using devices for leisure 3–5 hrs score −0.066 on belonging — noticeably lower than the 1-hour group.
📚
Learning barely moves it
Learning screen time has almost no effect on belonging — the index stays near zero across all brackets.

OECD PISA 2022 · Tables 43 & 44 · OECD average sense of belonging index

Critical data practice

What this data can't tell us.

Week 9 of this course asks us to audit data visualisations critically. Here's an honest audit of this one.

👤
Who is this data for?
PISA surveys 15-year-olds in schools. It excludes students who have dropped out, are home-schooled, or live in non-participating regions. Results reflect school systems, not all young people.
❓
Correlation ≠ causation
Students with lower scores may use screens more because they're disengaged — not the other way round. The data shows association, not cause. This is a key limitation the OECD itself acknowledges.
🌍
What's missing?
The dataset measures maths only. It doesn't capture creativity, wellbeing, social skills, or whether screen time content differs by class, gender, or race — all of which would change the story.
🔄
One change I'd suggest
This site should let users filter by country income group. The relationship between screen time and scores may look very different in lower-income countries where device access is a privilege, not a distraction.

Applying feminist data practice principles — D'Ignazio & Klein (2020) · Week 9, Hr3: Critical Data Practice