Many teenagers say they are more likely to engage with schoolwork when they can see how a lesson connects to their goals, according to a sponsored national survey that also found widespread concern about phones and social media distractions.
The Harris Poll surveyed 800 U.S. teens ages 13 to 17, 800 parents of teens and 400 teachers for MilkPEP in August. The findings describe what respondents said about attention and school, not an experiment proving that any particular lesson or technology improves learning.
What students and teachers report
Eighty-two percent of teachers said student attentiveness is declining. Among parents, 59% said their teen sometimes struggles to focus and 43% thought the problem was getting worse. Asked to compare generations, 64% said it is harder for teens to focus in school today than it was for them, while 59% said homework focus is harder and 57% said the same of everyday activities and hobbies.
Teachers reported a similar perception: 78% said focusing in school is harder for students now than when the teachers were students. Middle school teachers were more likely than high school teachers to hear students say school is not relevant to their lives or futures, 45% versus 28%. The report identified seventh through ninth grades as a particularly difficult period for focus, based on teachers' responses.
There is also a difference between teachers' intentions and what they hear from students. While 89% of teachers said their material is relevant to students' future success, 86% said a student had told them at least sometimes during the previous semester that school did not feel relevant. Ninety-one percent of teachers and 97% of students agreed that engagement depends on a clear connection between a lesson and a personal goal.
Teens most often identified science, technology, engineering and math as connected to their futures, at 45%, with finance and money skills close behind at 43% and creative arts at 33%. Financial literacy, stocks and cryptocurrency were the leading requests for more school instruction: 53% of teens placed those topics among their top two choices. Forty-two percent of teachers said they want to bring financial literacy into their curriculum, and 99% said they have already taken some step to make coursework more engaging.
Screens, food and the survey's sponsor
Distractions did not disappear in the responses. Eight in 10 teens said they struggle to get interested in homework at least sometimes; 52% cited material that feels irrelevant, while 59% cited distractions such as their phone. Nearly half said they use social media almost constantly, and another 47% check it several times a day. Eighty-eight percent of teachers and 61% of students agreed that short-form video makes sustained focus harder.
At the same time, 45% of teens said they trust online experts or creators more than school for information aligned with their goals, and half said social-media content feels more relevant to their future than classwork. Ninety-five percent said they would watch longer educational YouTube videos linking school subjects with careers or opportunities. Forty-one percent of teachers said they currently use no social content in assignments.
Parents expressed both interest and concern: 65% said social platforms connect teens with useful academic resources, while 33% worried about content their child encounters. For material aimed at young people, 50% wanted age labeling, 49% wanted established youth-safety standards and 40% wanted content from organizations they trust.
The survey also asked about nutrition. Ninety-three percent of parents and 94% of teens agreed that a nutritious breakfast or lunch makes focusing easier, and 74% of students said they reach for a snack or drink to help with homework. Those are perceptions and self-reported habits, not measured effects of food on attention.
MilkPEP commissioned the survey as it prepared to launch milkXP, a long-form educational video series, on YouTube on Sept. 15. That commercial connection is relevant to the report's emphasis on nutrition and educational video; the survey alone does not establish that the new series improves learning.
The online survey ran Aug. 4-14, 2026, with nationally representative weighted samples. Harris reported a 95% Bayesian credible interval of about five percentage points for teen and parent results and seven points for teachers, with wider intervals for smaller subgroups. Comparisons such as the middle-versus-high-school teacher split should be read with that added uncertainty.
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