Teenagers who spend more than six hours online on school days are more likely to be lonely and skip lessons, according to a major international study

Teenagers who spend more than six hours online on school days are more likely to be lonely and skip lessons, according to a major international study.

They display lower emotional well-being and more behavioural problems – such as arriving late for class – than those with more ‘moderate’ internet use.

The findings from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development will renew concerns about the impact computers and mobile phones are having on children.

It comes as a separate study published today by Scholastic shows that some 12 to 17-year-olds in Britain are reading just four books a year amid their daily addiction to screen-related activities.

The OECD examined the home internet use, well-being and behaviour of 296,000 15-year-olds in 41 countries via questionnaires.

More than one in four spent more than four hours per day online outside of school.

The study found lower levels of well-being among students who spent more than six hours per day online.

They were twice as likely as teenagers spending one and two hours per day online to report that they felt lonely at school.

These ‘extreme internet users’ were also particularly at risk of ‘behaving in problematic ways at school, such as arriving late or skipping days’.

The study also assessed the digital skills of 63,000 of these children in 31 countries.

Just 32 per cent of students who spent less than one hour a day online during the weekdays arrived late for school in the two weeks prior to their PISA digital skills test.

This compared to 45 per cent of students who spent more than six hours a day online arriving late.

The OECD report said: ‘Lower levels of engagement with school may be related to less sense of belonging at school.

‘It is also possible that truancy and arriving late for school are the consequence of lack of sleep among extreme Internet users.’

It adds: ‘While these findings cannot demonstrate the direction of causality, they suggest that well-being at school is strongly related to the electronic media diet outside of school.

‘Parents, schools and health professionals can work together to monitor and plan children’s use of new media.’

The OECD study also found that countries that invest heavily in ICT in schools have seen no ‘appreciable’ difference in 15-year-old’s achievement in reading, maths or science tests.

Worries: The findings from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development will renew concerns about the impact computers and mobile phones are having on children

PISA results suggest ‘limited’ use of computers at school ‘may be better’ than not using them at all.

However, using them more ‘intensively’ than the current OECD average ‘tends to be associated with significantly poorer student performance’

Students who use computers ‘very frequently’ at school ‘do a lot worse in most learning outcomes’.

The report says: ‘In the end, technology can amplify great teaching, but great technology cannot replace poor teaching.’

Meanwhile, a survey of 1,755 parents and children aged up to 17 by Scholastic found that over 60 per cent of 12 to 14-year-olds use a smartphone to go online virtually every day.

A similar proportion of this age group regularly watch videos on YouTube or play games on any electronic device.

Half of parents feel their 12 to 14-year-olds are spending too much time on smartphones, apps and YouTube.