Screens After a Concussion: How Long to Avoid Them and Why

Do Screens Make a Concussion Worse?

In the first 2 days they can slow recovery. A randomized trial enrolled 125 people aged 12 to 25 within 24 hours of a concussion and asked half to stay off screens for 48 hours. The group allowed screens logged a median of 630 minutes over those 2 days and took a median of 8.0 days to recover. The group asked to abstain logged 130 minutes and took 3.5 days (Macnow, 2021).

That trial covered 48 hours and nothing more. It doesn't show that weeks without a phone help, and the next study suggests they don't.

How Much Screen Time Is Too Much After the First Days?

The middle did best. A study followed 633 children and teenagers with a concussion and 334 with an orthopedic injury, and measured their screen time 7 to 10 days after the injury. Both low and high screen time went with more severe symptoms in the concussion group during the first 30 days, and the link disappeared after 30 days. Other factors mattered more than screen time did, and the authors concluded that recommending moderation may be the best approach (Cairncross, 2022).

Both studies were in young people, and the second one was observational, so it can't say that the screens caused the symptoms. Together they point the same way: a short break at the start, then a return in moderate amounts.

Why Is Avoiding Screens for Months a Problem?

When you get sensitive to the world, the natural move is to close things out and save your energy. Our team's concern is where that leads. The more you restrict your life, the more restricted your life becomes. The body adjusts itself down to match its level of output, so the less you do, the less you're able to do.

Research on avoidance after concussion points the same direction. Among 74 adults seen within 30 days of a concussion, the half who scored as fear-avoidant had worse symptom, reaction time and visual motion sensitivity scores, and were 62% less likely to recover on any given day than the others (Trbovich, 2026). That study measured avoidance in general and didn't single out screens.

Our team's alternative is to get specific. Thinking about everything at once, as 1 big limit on activity, leaves you rationing your whole life. Asking which input is the problem, whether it's visual, vestibular or something else, turns it into 1 thing to solve. Then you can do more in that 1 area, build it, and let the rest of the system come up to match. Our team's early rest window after a concussion is 7 to 14 days, and this is the work that comes after it.

Why Do Screens Still Bother You Months Later?

Screens can be an early trigger for symptoms, and in our team's experience that's especially true when someone has a vergence problem or an accommodation problem. Vergence is how the 2 eyes turn in together to hold 1 near target, and accommodation is how the lens focuses. A screen asks for both, at a fixed near distance, for hours.

Those problems are common after a concussion. Among 113 adolescents still symptomatic 4 to 12 weeks after the injury, 70% had at least 1 oculomotor diagnosis, with convergence insufficiency and accommodative insufficiency each in 35% (Scheiman, 2021). A standard eye exam can miss them because it tests how sharp each eye sees, 1 eye at a time. Blurry vision after a concussion covers that, and dizzy when reading covers what near work asks of the eyes.

If screens are still a problem months out, our team's view is that the screen is showing you which system is weak. Light that's too bright points 1 way and is covered on light sensitivity. Scrolling that makes you dizzy or sick points toward the eyes and the vestibular system.

What Does Our Team Do About It?

Our team targets what's wrong and avoids running a standard list of exercises, because for a lot of people the standard list won't work. An example from the clinic: a patient wearing recording goggles shows a drift of the eyes to the left. That matches which way they fall on the balance platform, and it's compared with their brain blood flow on the tilt test. The exercise is then built for that finding, and afterward the same measures are rechecked. The drift should stop, the fall to the side should stop, and the blood flow should improve. That's 1 finding among many, and each one is handled the same way.

This kind of exercise is aimed at the nervous system, and it's different from fitness exercise. A fitness-first approach can be too much stimulus and too general, spending energy on the muscles that could go into training the part of the system that's failing. What the exam measures is on concussion testing: what to expect.

Screens After a Concussion: FAQ