Physiological and hygienic assessment of the functional state of high school students when working with multimedia educational content in various types of educational activities

Introduction. Modern digitalization of education, despite its advantages, is associated with alarming trends in the deterioration of the health in schoolchildren. To ensure optimal cognitive load and preserve the health in students, there is a need to develop differentiated hygienic requirements for multimedia and interactive educational content for high school students, taking into account the specifics of various types of educational activities and their impact on the functional state of the body.

Materials and methods. A prospective study conducted as part of a field experiment based on schools in St. Petersburg included seventy five senior high school students, which compared the impact of lessons with and without multimedia content, taking into account the type of educational activity. To assess the functional state of the central nervous system and the visual analyzer before and after classes, methods were used to measure a simple sensorimotor response and the critical frequency of fusion of light flashes.

Results. The study revealed a dual effect of multimedia content: on the one hand, it contributed to improving CNS performance (reducing sensorimotor response time), on the other, it caused significant visual fatigue, especially when working with high-media materials. At the same time, the effect on cognitive functions strongly depended on the pedagogical scenario — the most adverse effect was observed with constant switching of attention between the screen and the notebook.

Limitations. The limitation of this study is its focus on a specific cohort of 75 conditionally healthy St. Petersburg high school students, which does not allow extrapolating the conclusions to all adolescent populations, as well as taking into account only certain types of multimedia content while maintaining general hygienic conditions.

Conclusion. The study demonstrates the ambivalent effect of digital learning: multimedia content reduces cognitive load, but increases the risk of visual fatigue by 1.6–3.4 times. The key factor is not the type of content, but the pedagogical scenario of its use, where chaotic eye switching between the screen and the exercise-book is especially harmful. The optimal result is achieved with a dosed combination of digital and traditional learning formats.

Compliance with ethical standards. The study was conducted in compliance with the ethical standards set out in the Declaration of Helsinki and the Directives of the European Community (8/609EC). The study was approved by the local Ethics committee of the I.I. Mechnikov Northwestern State Medical University of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation (minutes of meeting No. 9 dated 10/12/2022). Written informed consent was received from the management of educational institutionsorganizations, parents of students and high school students themselves. All participants in the study expressed their full agreement to participate in it.

Contribution:
Koroleva A.A. – the concept and design of the study, collection and processing of material, writing text;
Yanushanets O.I. – study concept and design, editing.
All authors are responsible for the integrity of all parts of the manuscript and approval of the manuscript final version.

Conflict of interest. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Funding. The study had no sponsorship.

Received: November 10, 2025 / Accepted: December 2, 2025 / Published: March 13, 2026

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