Contents
- Children screen time in Canada statistics: recreational use and guidelines
- How screen-time adherence changed from 2018–2019
- Children screen time in Canada statistics by school day
- Children screen time in Canada: devices before sleep
- Screen time and well-being in a Canadian child cohort
- Sources
Children screen time in Canada statistics: recreational use and guidelines
Canadian recommendations focus on recreational screen use: children and youth should spend no more than two hours per day on it. That distinction matters. The available figures do not represent every screen activity, such as schoolwork, and measures from different surveys or years are not always directly comparable.
Statistics Canada’s Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS) found that in 2022–2024, 62% of children aged 5–11 in the 10 provinces met the recreational screen-time recommendation. Among youth aged 12–17, the share was 28%. The survey’s screen-time estimates were self-reported. A companion national indicator for children and youth aged 5–17 put average recreational screen-based sedentary activity at 2.8 hours per day; 44.8% met the leisure-time sedentary-behaviour recommendation of two hours or less on electronic devices.
These measures describe the same broad concern but use different summaries: one reports average hours, while the other reports the share within a recommended limit. The combined 5–17 average also conceals the age difference visible in the CHMS adherence rates.
Sources: Statistics Canada, Canadian Health Measures Survey, 2022–2024; Public Health Agency of Canada, PASS Indicators Data Tool, 2025 Edition.
How screen-time adherence changed from 2018–2019
The CHMS comparison indicates a modest decline among children and a lower rate among youth. In 2018–2019, 73% of children aged 5–11 met the recommendation, compared with 62% in 2022–2024. For youth aged 12–17, the rate moved from 31% to 28% over those periods.
The gap between age groups is much larger than the change over time among youth: in the latest period, children were more than twice as likely as youth to meet the limit. The figures are historical comparisons of self-reported recreational screen time, and they do not establish why adherence changed. They also should not be read as a measurement of all screen use during the day.
A separate Statistics Canada analysis followed the same cohort of children surveyed in 2019 and 2023. The cohort was aged 3–11 in 2019 and 7–15 in 2023. 44% followed the Canadian Paediatric Society’s screen-time guidelines in both years, while 12% did not follow them in either year. These are patterns within that follow-up cohort, not prevalence estimates for all Canadian children in either year.
Sources: Statistics Canada, Canadian Health Measures Survey, 2022–2024; Statistics Canada, “Screen time and well-being among children”.
Children screen time in Canada statistics by school day
A Statistics Canada study of Canadian youth aged 12–17 compared self-reported screen time on school days and non-school days in 2018 and 2021. The percentage reporting two hours or less on school days fell from 40.7% in 2018 to 29.1% in 2021. Meanwhile, the proportion reporting four or more hours on school days rose from 21.1% to 33.7%.
| Youth aged 12–17, school-day screen time | 2018 | 2021 |
|---|---|---|
| Two hours or less per day | 40.7% | 29.1% |
| Four hours or more per day | 21.1% | 33.7% |
The shift was also present on non-school days. The share reporting two hours or less decreased from 21.4% in 2018 to 13.2% in 2021, while the share reporting four or more hours increased from 47.0% to 56.4%.
| Youth aged 12–17, non-school-day screen time | 2018 | 2021 |
|---|---|---|
| Two hours or less per day | 21.4% | 13.2% |
| Four hours or more per day | 47.0% | 56.4% |
The distributions show that longer reported screen time was more common on non-school days in both survey years. They also show higher proportions in the four-or-more-hours category in 2021 than in 2018. These are two cross-sectional survey estimates, so the comparison does not track the same individual youth over time or identify the reason for the change.
Children screen time in Canada: devices before sleep
Bedtime device use is another measured part of children’s screen exposure. In the 2023 Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth, 49.2% of children and youth aged 5–17 used an electronic device in their bedroom before falling asleep.
The national figure combines a wide age range. Age-specific results show that the behavior was much more common among older teens: in 2023, 57% of 12-year-olds and 90% of 17-year-olds reported using an electronic device in their bedroom before falling asleep. These are self-reported measures of device use before sleep, not estimates of total daily screen hours or proof of an effect on sleep.
Source: Public Health Agency of Canada, PASS Indicators Data Tool, 2025 Edition; Statistics Canada, “Does screen time make a difference? A longitudinal study of youth screen time and well-being”.
Screen time and well-being in a Canadian child cohort
The 2019/2023 cohort analysis also reported selected 2023 outcomes by whether children followed screen-time guidelines in both survey years. Among those who followed the guidelines in both years, 91.3% had excellent or very good overall health, 80.0% had excellent or very good mental health, and 90.6% had an overall school mark of 70% or higher in 2023.
The findings describe a subgroup within the same cohort, whose ages changed from 3–11 in 2019 to 7–15 in 2023. They show that guideline adherence and these reported outcomes occurred together for many children in that subgroup. They do not show that screen-time habits caused the health, mental-health or school outcomes.
The same table provides a small window into family conversations and online awareness. Among children who followed guidelines in both years, 82.6% talked with a parent or guardian about online safety at least sometimes, and 76.9% did so about online privacy. For 88.1%, a parent or guardian often or always knew what the child was doing online. These figures are again cohort-specific 2023 outcomes, rather than national estimates for all Canadian children.
Source: Statistics Canada, “Screen time and well-being among children”.
Sources
- Directly measured physical activity and sedentary time in Canada: New results from the Canadian Health Measures Survey, 2022 to 2024
- Physical Activity, Sedentary Behaviour and Sleep (PASS) Indicators Data Tool, 2025 Edition: Quick Stats — Children and Youth
- Screen time and well-being among children
- The ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on physical activity and screen time among Canadian youth
- Does screen time make a difference? A longitudinal study of youth screen time and well-being