Sleep, Purpose, and Side Hustles: What students’ screens and feeds are really shaping
For Educators · The Social Institute
Show up ready to learn, figure out who you are, and build something real. Students are navigating all kinds of pressure on their screens.
- Chronic absenteeism and sleep: New NWEA research across 2,000 districts links chronic absenteeism to slower academic recovery in math and reading, and separate studies tie late-night social media use and short sleep in teens to more unexcused absences.
- Teen purpose and achievement pressure: Harvard’s Making Caring Common Turning the Tide report finds 34% of high school teens report little to no sense of meaning or purpose, while 87% of 16- to 18-year-olds feel pressure to find a single passion.
- Student entrepreneurs on social media: Teens like Michael Satterlee (Cruise Cup) and brothers Kirk and Jacob McKinney (Junk Teens) built million-dollar businesses on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, showing K-12 students what intentional social media use can create.
Chronic absenteeism is stalling academic recovery, and for many students it starts the night before.
A new NWEA study ties chronic absenteeism to slower recovery in math and reading, and the barrier to showing up rested often starts with last night’s scroll.
The Gist
A new study from the testing group NWEA reveals a key challenge impacting students’ academic performance since the pandemic: absenteeism. Districts where a lot of students were chronically absent recovered the slowest, and the gap was about 50% bigger in math than in reading. For many students, the real barrier to showing up rested and ready to learn starts the night before, with late-night scrolling that eats into sleep. Schools chasing attendance with rules alone are missing part of the picture. The ones helping students strike a balance and build the habits to manage their screen time are setting students up to actually show up ready to learn.
What to Know
According to a report in Education Week, the NWEA study compared math and reading scores for grades 3-8 with chronic absenteeism rates across 2,000 districts from 2019 to 2024. In districts where at least 20% of students missed 10% or more of the school year, students made much less progress returning to pre-pandemic achievement levels, and the effect hit hardest in math. As Thomas Kane, the director of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard, put it, “Absence rates hurt even the kids who aren’t absent.” When a different group of students is out each day, teachers end up reteaching the same lessons over and over.
So where do screens come into all this? A 2024 scientific study found that excessive screen use and short sleep in teens are linked to an increase in unexcused absences. It’s not hard to see why: 93% of Gen Z admit to staying up past their bedtime because of social media, and 88% of educators say they’re seeing more learning challenges in students with heavy screen use. When a late-night scroll turns into lost sleep, showing up the next morning, rested and ready, gets a lot harder.
The takeaway for educators is that attendance is about more than getting students through the door. It’s about helping them show up well-rested, focused, and engaged. That’s where healthy habits around sleep and screens come in.
TSI’s Take
The recent NWEA study focuses on attendance, but for many students, the challenge to show up ready to learn starts hours earlier, when “one more video” turns into a night of doom scrolling and lost sleep. Equipping students with the skills to know when to put their devices down and prioritize their well-being is what will get them to show up ready to learn the next day. Educators can start by:
- Connecting screens and sleep to showing up: Help students notice how late-night scrolling affects their energy, mood, and ability to make it to class ready to learn.
- Making attendance about purpose, not just policy: Invite students to link showing up to goals they actually care about, so attendance feels like something they’re choosing, not something being enforced.
- Partnering with families on healthy tech routines: Share simple, doable ideas like charging phones outside the bedroom, so home habits reinforce what happens at school.
Help students weigh their screen time against what matters most to them with the #WinAtSocial Lesson, One more scroll vs. one more goal, where students explore how their everyday tech choices connect to their bigger goals.
A third of teens say they lack meaning and purpose, and the pressure to have it all figured out is only getting louder.
34% report little to no sense of purpose, 87% feel pressure to find a single passion, and their feeds keep raising the bar.
The Gist
More than a third of high school teens say they feel little to no clear sense of meaning or purpose in their daily lives, and nearly 9 in 10 feel pressure to find a single passion. For today’s students, that pressure doesn’t stay at school. It follows them onto their feeds full of peers’ highlight reels and “I found my calling at 16” stories that make it look like everyone else has it all figured out. The schools helping most aren’t the ones promising to lower the stakes. They’re the ones helping students handle the pressure and build a sense of purpose that can hold up when plans change.
What to Know
According to U.S. News, the latest Turning the Tide report from Harvard’s Making Caring Common project and the National Association for College Admission Counseling found that 34% of high school teens report little to no clear meaning or purpose in their daily lives. Among young people ages 19 to 25, that number climbed to 51%. The report points to escalating achievement pressure as a major driver.
The survey also found that 87% of 16- to 18-year-olds felt “some” or “a lot” of pressure to find a single passion or purpose. That’s a heavy expectation to put on a student, and it lands in a moment when social media constantly serves up curated snapshots of peers who seem to already know exactly where they’re headed.
TSI’s Take
Many students are carrying the weight of feeling like they should have their whole future mapped out and coming up short against an impossible standard. As educators, we can name that pressure and normalize uncertainty to help students.
The goal isn’t to shield students from every stressor. In fact, some stress has been proven to be useful. Instead, we can equip students to handle the pressure, find their own path, and stay grounded in who they are. When students realize that the majority of their peers are still also trying to figure it all out and that changing plans when things don’t work out is normal rather than a personal failure, that pressure loosens its grip. Educators can help by:
- Normalizing not having it all figured out: Share your own path and remind students that purpose is something you grow into, not a box you check at 16.
- Helping students notice comparison online: Talk openly about how feeds show highlight reels, not full stories, so students measure themselves against reality instead of a curated version of it.
- Building resilience before setbacks hit: Give students low-stakes practice bouncing back, so they have the confidence and coping skills ready when a bigger plan falls through.
Help students build the confidence to adapt when things don’t go as planned with the #WinAtSocial Lesson, Resilience when plans fall apart, where students practice navigating setbacks and staying grounded in what matters to them.
These teen entrepreneurs built real businesses on social media, and their playbook is a lesson in using it with intention.
One video, 50 million views, and $300,000 a month. What set these students apart wasn’t the platform, it was the intention.
The Gist
Not every social media story is a cautionary tale. A recent look at student business owners shows them using the social media platforms they love to build real companies, real audiences, and real opportunity. One teen turned a single low-budget video into more than 50 million views and a product line pulling in up to $300,000 a month. Two brothers grew a junk-removal company to roughly $3 million and 500,000 followers, using social media to recruit young workers. What sets these students apart isn’t the platform they used. It’s how they used it: with intention and purpose. And that’s a skill any student can build.
What to Know
According to Business Insider, teen entrepreneur Michael Satterlee posted a simple video of himself using his “tactical reload can holder,” and it racked up more than 50 million views on Instagram, driving demand for his company, Cruise Cup, which now brings in up to $300,000 a month. His advice for anyone building online is to act less like a store and more like a creator. As he put it, “You want to build a community.”
Brothers Kirk and Jacob McKinney took a different approach with their junk-removal company, Junk Teens, which brought in about $3 million in 2025. They didn’t even post to social media until their third year, then used it less to find customers and more to build a recognizable brand and recruit young employees. They also tailor their content to each platform rather than posting the same thing everywhere, treating Facebook as their direct line to local customers and Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube as the place to reach their own generation.
For educators, the story is less about entrepreneurship and more about possibility. It shows students that social media can be a place to build something meaningful, not just pass the time, and gives teachers a real-world example to point to when talking about using tech with intention.
TSI’s Take
Students who grew up with smartphones and social media already know these tools inside out. When we equip them with the skills to navigate tech in high-character ways, that fluency can turn into something bigger: real connections, real communities, and sometimes a real business.
Students face real challenges online. They also build habits there every day, and those habits shape the opportunities they’ll have tomorrow. That’s why the classroom is such a powerful place to connect what students already do online to what they’re learning. When we treat their online experiences as material for learning, we help them see how today’s posts, videos, and side hustles build skills for their futures. Educators can help by:
- Asking students what they create and share online, then tying it back to class work in writing, business, art, or civics
- Pointing to positive role models like Michael and the McKinney brothers, who used social media with intention
- Practicing skills like playing to your core, so students lead with character as their audiences grow
Help students think about how today’s posts shape tomorrow’s opportunities with the #WinAtSocial Lesson, Long-term impact of what we do online, where students explore how the choices they make online today can shape their future.
Showing up rested, figuring out who you are, and building something worth sharing all come back to the same thing: students making intentional choices with the tech in their hands. That’s the work #WinAtSocial is built for. Want to see how it looks in your school? Request a demo and we’ll walk you through it.