Platforms like YouTube have become ubiquitous in classrooms. A recent report from Gallup found that 96% of students are equipped with devices that are meant to enhance their learning.

Reality, however, is not so straightforward. Some students are using their devices to watch videos that don’t qualify as educational. In the most extreme cases, kids and teens watch thousands of those videos each semester; with those behaviors, classroom devices become distractions, not academic aids.

That was one conclusion NBC News drew after surveying student YouTube habits over an entire academic year. The study was not broad — only 11 kids and their parents turned over classroom viewership records — but it was deep. NBC News analyzed more than 17,000 videos and uncovered some concerning trends.

One Wisconsin sixth grader viewed more than 2,200 videos during the school year, but only 21 were deemed educational. An eighth grader in Pennsylvania watched a whopping 4,700 videos over the same period, and only a small fraction suited the intended use of his classroom device. Those findings echo a recent report published by the Wall Street Journal. That article told the story of a student who watched 13,000 videos on a school-issued device over three months.

To be clear, not all of the students in the NBC News sample are misusing their school devices. Four members of the 11-person cohort mostly used YouTube as intended by viewing educational videos while at school. Around the same time the WSJ report came out, software company Securly tracked classroom traffic and concluded that most students are only on YouTube for about five minutes of the school day.

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