Purpose: Sleep is essential for effective daily cognitive and affective functioning, both of which are critical in the school context. In recent years, average nighttime sleep duration has been decreasing, particularly among teenagers, in parallel with an increase in screen time. Here, we aimed at assessing whether parental rules pertaining to the use of electronic devices in the evening were associated with enhanced sleep duration in healthy adolescents.

Methods: We asked 329 adolescents (13-15 years old) to fill in questionnaires collected within their schools.

Results: We show that only the strictest parental rules regarding screen use (no smartphone in the room and no phone use in the evening) correlated with significantly longer sleep duration. Finally, our investigation revealed that sleep duration was linked to academic achievement, which was further enhanced by the presence of parental rules.

Discussion: Taken together, these results suggest that promoting greater parental control over the use of electronic devices may potentially help alleviating sleep loss in adolescents.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12982-025-00923-w.