Is online school better for students with anxiety?

It can be, especially for kids whose anxiety is tied to crowds, social pressure or bullying. Bullying searches dropped about 30% when schools went remote. But avoiding every hard situation can also let anxiety grow. If you choose online school for an anxious child, pair it with regular in-person time with friends, and ideally support from a counselor or therapist.

Does virtual learning cause depression?

The research doesn't show that online school causes depression by itself. What it shows is that kids learning online during the pandemic were more likely to have worse mental health, and much more likely to lose physical activity and time outdoors. Those losses are risk factors you can do something about.

Do students sleep better with online school?

Often, yes. In one study of more than 5,000 students, high schoolers got about 40 minutes more sleep on live online days than on in-person days, and nearly two hours more on self-paced days. The benefit holds only if screens don't eat into it at night.

Should I move my child back to in-person school?

It depends on what's going wrong. If your child is isolated, inactive, or drifting without structure, and the steps above haven't helped, in-person school may be the better fit. If online school removed a real problem, like bullying, fix the gaps instead of giving up the benefit. Your child's doctor and teachers can help you weigh it.

Virtual Learning and Student Mental Health

Virtual learning can go either way for a student's mental health. The best research found kids in online school were more likely to have worse mental health, less activity, and less time outside than kids in the classroom. But some students did better at home, with less bullying and more sleep. The difference usually comes down to structure, movement, real contact with friends, and how the adults at home are holding up.

Online school didn't end when the pandemic did. Just over 600,000 public school students attended fully virtual schools in the 2024–25 school year, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of federal data:

1 in 80

public school students, roughly double the number before the pandemic

So the question isn't going away. If your child learns from home, or you're weighing it, here's what we actually know.

What the Research Says About Virtual Learning and Student Mental Health

One caveat before the numbers. Most of the solid research was done in 2020 and 2021, when online school came bundled with lockdowns, cancelled sports and a lot of household stress. Some of what kids felt was the pandemic, not the laptop. The patterns are still useful, because they show what a child loses when school moves home, and what you can put back.

The risks showed up fast

In fall 2020, the CDC surveyed 1,290 parents of kids aged 5 to 12 and compared children by how they were going to school. Among kids learning only online, 24.9% had worse mental or emotional health, compared with 15.9% of kids in the classroom (Verlenden et al., CDC MMWR, 2021).

The bigger gaps were in the things that protect mental health. Nearly 63% of virtual learners were less physically active, against 30% of in-person kids. Fifty-eight percent spent less time outdoors, against 27%. Those two habits matter a lot, and they're exactly what a school day quietly provides: the walk in, recess, gym, moving between rooms.

Some kids did better at home

Online school also took some things away that kids were glad to lose. When schools went remote in spring 2020, Google searches for school bullying and cyberbullying dropped by about 30%, and the drop was bigger in places that stayed remote longer (Bacher-Hicks et al., AER: Insights, 2022). For a child who was being picked on, home can be a relief.

Sleep is the other surprise. A study of 5,245 students in grades 6 to 12 (Meltzer et al., SLEEP, 2021) found high schoolers slept:

7.4 hourson in-person school days

8.1 hourson live online days

9.2 hourson self-paced online days

On in-person days, only about 37% of high schoolers got enough sleep. Teenagers' body clocks run late, and an early bus fights that every morning.

Why the same school works for one kid and not another

Here's our read on the research. Online school removes structure, and structure cuts both ways.

There are two main kinds of virtual learning:

Live (synchronous) classes meet on video at set times.
Self-paced (asynchronous) programs let students work through lessons whenever they want.

Self-paced gives the most sleep and flexibility, and it also asks a young person to supply their own routine, motivation and stopping point. Plenty of adults struggle with that.

A kid who's anxious in crowds, bullied, or wiped out by an early start may find some breathing room. A kid who needs friends around, needs to move, or loses focus without a teacher in the room tends to drift. Add a firehose of tabs, videos, messages and assignments with no bell to end the day, and it's easy to feel overloaded and behind at the same time.

Signs Online School Isn't Working for Your Child

Every kid has rough weeks. What you're watching for is a pattern that lasts. The CDC lists these among the signs of anxiety and depression in children:

Worry that doesn't let up and gets in the way of daily life
Feeling sad, hopeless or irritable much of the time
Losing interest in things they used to enjoy
Changes in sleep or eating
Trouble concentrating, tiredness or restlessness
Headaches or stomachaches with no clear cause

In a virtual setup, a few more are worth noticing: camera always off, logging in but not really there, avoiding friends even online, or bedtime creeping later and later.

If you're seeing these, the CDC's advice is to start with your child's doctor or a mental health professional.

If your child talks about hurting themselves or not wanting to be alive, call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, right away.

What Helps at Home

You can't recreate a school building in your kitchen, and you don't need to. Aim to put back the protective things online school strips out.

Build a day with edges

Pick a start time, a lunch break away from the screen, and a clear end. Keep a spot that's for schoolwork and nothing else, even if it's one side of the table. When the laptop closes, the school day's over.

Get them moving and outside

This was the biggest gap in the CDC data, and it's the easiest to fix. A walk before first period, a real recess, a sport or activity after school.

Protect the sleep advantage

If online school gives your teen more sleep, don't let late-night scrolling take it back. Keeping the wake-up time steady, even on days off, makes that easier.

Make time for friends in person

Kids in the CDC survey lost a lot of in-person time with friends no matter how they went to school, but virtual learners lost the most. Clubs, sports, a standing weekend plan, a study buddy who comes over. Group chats aren't the same thing.

Stay in touch with teachers

Online teachers often can't see what an in-person teacher would notice. A short check-in every few weeks tells you how your child is really doing, and tells the teacher what's going on at home.

Teachers Are Carrying It Too

Teachers are under their own strain. In RAND's 2026 survey, 55% of K–12 public school teachers reported frequent job-related stress, compared with 34% of similar working adults (RAND, 2026). That isn't specific to online teaching. But virtual teachers deal with it while trying to read a class through a grid of muted squares. A little patience and a quick thank-you go a long way, and a teacher who feels supported is better placed to support your child.

Don't Forget Your Own Stress

This part gets skipped. In that same CDC survey, 54% of parents whose kids were learning online reported emotional distress, compared with 38% of parents of in-person kids. Parents of virtual learners were also more likely to lose work and struggle with childcare.

Kids read the adults around them. A calm, rested parent does more for a struggling student than any study schedule.

If you're working from home while also running a classroom, the habits that head off burnout at work apply to you too: real breaks, a clear end to the day, and saying so when the load's too heavy.

It's also what the Avidon app is built for. Its programs use cognitive behavioral techniques to help adults manage stress, sleep better and change the way they talk to themselves. In our six-month study of more than 7,500 people who took our stress program, 96% said they handled stressful situations more effectively afterward. Details are at the end of this article.

How Virtual Learning Affects Student Mental Health