More time on screen, more health complaints in adolescents

teenpicture credit

 

As part of our special issue “Communication Technology, Media Use and the Health of our Kids”, we published a new study looking at the associations between screen-based behaviour and health complaints in adolescents.

The study uses data from HBSC study and focuses on Slovak adolescents. More than 8,000 adolescents were included, aged between 11 and 15 years. Various screen-based behaviours were assessed (such as watching TV and playing computer games), as well as a number of health complaints (such as headache, backache, sleep difficulties, irritability etc).

The authors report that time spent in front of the computer increased the chance of reporting all the assessed health complaints. Watching TV for more than 3 hours per day increased reporting of headaches, feeling low, being irritable and feeling nervous. These associations were not moderated by physical activity.

What do you think? How can we reduce the effects of screen-related behaviours on health? Is it possible to “move” children away from the screens? And how?

 

* This study was written by Daniela Brindova, Zuzana Dankulincova Veselska, Daniel Klein, Zdenek Hamrik, Dagmar Sigmundova, Jitse P. van Dijk, Sijmen A. Reijneveld and Andrea Madarasova Geckova

You may also like...

2 Responses

  1. aarjun says:

    Yes you are saying right.these informations are more beneficial for children.
    the authors report that time spent in front of the computer increased the chance of reporting all the assessed health complaints. Watching TV for more than 3 hours per day.

  2. Garret says:

    Agree 100%. I think many forget about context which should really be considered in the planning stages of any online social media efforts. Often times I see this element come into play after the effect when there could have been so much more benefit by including it initially.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *