Teenagers’ reading performance has fallen to its lowest level this century, with a major international assessment linking weaker results to rising screen time, declining reading for pleasure and increasingly distracted learning environments.
Reuters reported that the OECD’s 2025 Programme for International Student Assessment tested 760,000 15-year-olds across 91 countries, finding reading, mathematics and science scores at their lowest levels since data collection began in 2000.
The Straits Times likewise reported that students were, on average, reading at a level previously expected of pupils one year younger.
Reading scores fall sharply from 2012 peak
The deterioration in reading has been substantial.
According to Reuters, the average PISA reading score dropped from 501 in 2012 to 466 in 2025. Reading scores also declined more sharply among students from better-off backgrounds.
OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said that more screen time and less reading for pleasure had gone hand in hand with weaker results. He also pointed to more hasty reading, with students rushing through text and producing quick but incorrect answers.
The Straits Times reported the same pattern, noting that weaker reading performance was accompanied by declines in mathematics and science. Science fell from a high of 506 in 2009 to 486, while mathematics declined from 502 to 469 over the same period.
East Asia remained the strongest-performing region, with participating Chinese cities, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan among the leading education systems. Britain and Estonia were the only countries outside the region to appear in the top 10 across reading, mathematics and science, Reuters reported.
Digital distraction extends beyond leisure screen time
The OECD stopped short of recommending blanket smartphone bans in schools, but its findings showed a clear relationship between digital distraction and lower performance.
Digital distraction was associated with lower science scores in 59 of 82 education systems, while more than one in four students said devices distracted classmates during science lessons.
Students in OECD countries reported spending an average of 3.4 hours per weekday on digital devices for leisure, plus another three hours for learning at school and home. Performance began falling when device use exceeded five hours per day.
The assessment also found that nearly half of students regularly used AI chatbots for learning. Reuters reported that students using them for drafting essays, summarizing texts and researching topics generally scored about 20 points lower in science, roughly equivalent to a year of learning.
Education technology now faces an attention problem
For technology and education-product builders, the findings complicate the assumption that more digital access automatically produces better learning.
The OECD did not argue that devices themselves are inherently harmful. Cormann said digital technology can improve education—but only up to a point.
The more important product question may therefore be what kind of behavior educational technology encourages. Platforms built around rapid scanning, constant notifications and short-form interaction can condition very different habits from tools designed for sustained reading and deeper comprehension.
As classrooms become more digital, the challenge for edtech companies may no longer be simply getting technology into students’ hands. It may be designing technology that leaves enough attention for them to actually read.
