India has a median age of 28, with 65 percent of its population under 35. It is expected to remain the world’s youngest country until 2055, with its large and youthful population often framed as a significant economic advantage. However, India’s demographic dividend is not automatic; it depends fundamentally on the quality of human capital. That quality is shaped early—during schooling, within homes and classrooms—which are increasingly becoming digital.
Over the past decade, India has witnessed an unprecedented expansion in digital access. The total number of internet users increased from 250 million in 2014 to nearly 1.02 billion by September 2025, with 500 million unique social media users. Affordable smartphones and low data costs have made India the world’s second-largest smartphone market, with around 750 million devices. Average monthly data consumption per user has risen sharply—by nearly 399 times—from 62 megabytes in 2014 to roughly 24 gigabytes in 2025.
India’s demographic dividend is not automatic; it depends fundamentally on the quality of human capital.
For students, this has meant greater access to educational content, continuity of learning during disruptions, and exposure to new forms of knowledge. However, this transformation has also introduced a new variable into the human capital equation: the intensity and nature of digital engagement. ASER’s 2024 survey shows that nearly 82.2 percent of teenagers (14–16 years) know how to use a smartphone; however, only 57 percent use it for educational purposes, while 76 percent primarily use it to access social media. Several studies highlight excess screen time among children across different parts of the country: a recent study by the National Council of CBSE Schools (NCCS) found that about 74 percent of students nationwide spend more than two hours per day on screens for non-academic purposes, with around 21 percent exceeding four hours daily. Another study from rural areas around Pune reported excess screen time among 83.2 percent of students in Grades 8–10. In urban India, 49 percent of parents report that their children spend over 3 hours daily on social media, video/OTT, and online gaming platforms. Daily screen exposure among children under five has also been reported to average 2.22 hours, significantly higher than the recommended one hour per day set by the Indian Academy of Paediatrics (IAP).
This excess screen exposure has been linked to several adverse effects on children’s physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional development. These include:
- Cognitive impacts: Lower concentration, weaker comprehension, and declining retention.
- Health impacts: Postural effects, visual disturbances, sleep disruption, reduced physical activity, and an increased risk of obesity.
- Behavioural impacts: Higher levels of stress and anxiety, increased aggression, worsening body image perceptions, and weaker socio-emotional skill development.
- Time allocation impacts: Displacement of time for reading, homework, and social interaction.
Therefore, alongside the educational benefits of digital access, a growing body of evidence points to a more complex reality: the digital environment among students is emerging as a structural determinant of human capital formation. The policy challenge, therefore, is no longer simply about ensuring access to digital tools, but about ensuring that these tools enhance rather than undermine learning outcomes.
The policy challenge, therefore, is no longer simply about ensuring access to digital tools, but about ensuring that these tools enhance rather than undermine learning outcomes.
A Policy Shift in Progress
India’s policy discourse on students and digital technology has shifted notably. It has moved from an earlier access-and-opportunity frame to a more guarded-use and child-protection frame, where the state increasingly treats children’s digital lives as a matter of mental health, safety, rights, and platform governance.
The previous Indian policy framework, reflected in multiple policy documents, shows a more cautious evolution. The PRAGYATA guidelines, issued in 2020 for digital education, still operated within an educational continuity framework but incorporated concerns related to student well-being, safety, parental monitoring, and age-appropriate screen-time limits. Similarly, the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is broadly optimistic and pro-technology. It positions technology as an enabler of access, innovation, flexibility, and quality in education. The NEP explicitly speaks of leveraging technological advantages, supports its integration across education, and treats online and digital education as important for continuity and equity. Even here, however, the seeds of the later shift are visible: it already acknowledges “potential risks and dangers” and specifically calls for pilot studies on issues such as student device addiction.
In 2022, IAP guidelines reviewed evidence on screen-based media and excessive screen time, concluding that very early and prolonged exposure is linked to detrimental effects, as discussed. Economic Survey 2025–26, for the first time, included a section on ‘digital addiction’ noting its ‘real economic and social costs,’ and recommending a range of control measures to reduce screen time: age verification and age-appropriate defaults, digital wellness curriculum and mandatory physical activities in schools, technology-free zones, awareness programmes, and parental workshops to help caregivers recognise signs of addiction and use parental-control tools effectively.
Institutions focused on child rights and education have also begun to take note. Guidelines on cyber safety, responsible digital use, and screen-time management are increasingly being incorporated into school systems and public messaging. At the regulatory level, emerging data protection frameworks introduce safeguards for children, particularly against profiling and targeted digital engagement or advertising.
Economic Survey 2025–26, for the first time, included a section on ‘digital addiction’ noting its ‘real economic and social costs,’ and recommending a range of control measures to reduce screen time.
At the state level, policy responses are becoming increasingly visible. Several states have introduced or are considering restrictions on mobile phone use in schools, alongside campaigns to promote offline learning and reduce screen dependency. For example, Maharashtra recently established an expert task force on the impact of social media on minors, while Karnataka is reportedly preparing stricter rules on mobile and social media use for younger students. These moves indicate that the policy discourse is no longer merely advisory; it is edging toward active regulation of children’s digital environments.
While these measures remain uneven, they reflect a broader recognition that students’ digital use requires active governance, particularly when it affects large cohorts of students simultaneously, creating systemic risks to human capital formation.
Implications for India’s Human Capital
India’s human capital challenges are well documented. Despite improvements in access to schooling, concerns persist around learning outcomes, employability, and skill readiness. If digital environments further weaken attention and learning capacity, these challenges may intensify. Early learning deficits can have long-term effects on productivity, earnings, and economic growth. A workforce that struggles with concentration, problem-solving, and sustained effort is less likely to thrive in an increasingly knowledge-driven economy.
This raises a critical question for policymakers regarding India’s ability to sustain its growth trajectory if the foundational and preparatory skills of its future workforce are being shaped in environments that fragment attention and dilute learning, thereby quietly reducing their effectiveness. The answer lies in a coherent policy approach that treats digital exposure among students as a human capital issue, rather than a fragmented set of concerns across education, health, and technology. Some recommendations to achieve this are:
- Clear norms should be established around device use, screen time, and digital integration at schools, with a greater emphasis on attention-building pedagogies. Student attention, screen time, and digital behaviour indicators can also be integrated into education monitoring systems.
- Given teachers’ critical role, training programmes need to equip them not only to use digital tools but also to manage attention in digitally saturated classrooms. This includes recognising signs of digital overuse and adapting teaching strategies accordingly.
- International bodies such as the OECD and UNICEF emphasise parental mediation as one of the most effective interventions. Therefore, the government can initiate a national campaign to guide digital routines at home, encourage no-screen-before-sleep norms and co-viewing, and promote guided usage through schools (in parent-teacher meetings), anganwadis, and digital literacy missions.
- At the platform level, there is a growing need to examine how design features such as autoplay, notifications, and targeted recommendations influence student behaviour and shape attention allocation. Strengthening a child-centric approach to platform design and establishing design standards for children could align these features with developmental and educational goals.
- Finally, there is a need to collect and monitor nationally representative data on student screen time, patterns of digital use, sleep and health indicators, and associated learning outcomes.
To conclude, it is important to ensure that students’ digital engagement remains purposeful, structured, and aligned with learning objectives. This requires moving beyond a binary of ‘more technology’ versus ‘less technology’ and instead focusing on how technology is used, supported by governance frameworks that protect and enhance student learning.
Arpan Tulsyan is a Senior Fellow with the Centre for New Economic Diplomacy at the Observer Research Foundation.
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