More than 150 clinicians have urged the UK government to cut the amount of time children spend on screens in classrooms, warning that tablets and laptops are being used without a full understanding of their long-term health impacts. In an open letter to the education and health secretaries, GPs, paediatricians and other specialists said excessive classroom screen use could be harming children's "physical and developmental health".
The intervention, led by the group Health Professionals for Safer Screens, escalates a debate that has been building for years — and comes just months after a smartphone ban came into force in England's schools. The government says it is consulting on new screen-time guidance, but the clinicians argue the damage may already be compounding.
What the letter says
The open letter, addressed to Education Secretary Lucy Powell and Health Secretary Yvette Cooper, argues that tablets and laptops have become embedded in school life faster than the evidence on their safety. The clinicians say they are now prescribing glasses, hearing aids and speech therapy to children for problems they believe are being unintentionally worsened in schools.
According to the group, nearly one million children are using screens in most lessons. Many now spend longer on screens in the classroom than is recommended for an entire 24-hour period — a striking claim that frames the issue as one of dosage, not just content.
The myopia evidence
The letter's centrepiece is an analysis of 276 studies covering 5.4 million participants worldwide, which the clinicians say shows short-sightedness among children and adolescents rising from around 24 per cent in 1990 to almost 36 per cent by 2023. Myopia is associated with an increased risk of a range of eye health problems later in life, including retinal damage.
Dr Becky Foljambe, an NHS GP and founder of Health Professionals for Safer Screens, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the explosion in short-sightedness could not be put down to genetics alone. She argued that parents had never been given the chance to opt out of what she called the excessive use of screens in schools, and warned that children risked "just not thriving" in their education.
"A lazy argument"
Foljambe reserved her sharpest criticism for the claim that heavy classroom screen use prepares children for a digital workplace. She called that a lazy argument, insisting that children also need their sleep, their eyesight, rest, and the ability to think critically and appraise information — skills she suggested are undermined, not built, by constant screen exposure.
The letter also warned that children with special educational needs are being disproportionately directed towards screen-based learning — raising an equity concern on top of the health one. Those who may be most vulnerable to developmental harm are, the clinicians argue, getting the largest doses.
The government's response
The Department for Education said it was developing new screen-time guidance for children aged five to 18, and would consult on the safety of artificial intelligence and educational technology in schools. A spokesperson said that used well, technology could be a powerful tool to support learners who needed it and free up teachers to deliver the education every child deserves.
The letter follows the smartphone ban that came into force in England in June, making individual schools and trusts legally responsible for being phone-free throughout the day. The clinicians' argument, in effect, is that the ban addressed the device in children's pockets while leaving the bigger screen — the one on their desks — unexamined.
