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The differential impact of screen time on children’s wellbeing

Belton, Sarahjane orcid logoORCID: 0000-0001-9672-6276, Behan, Stephen orcid logoORCID: 0000-0003-3085-2792, Goss, Hannah orcid logoORCID: 0000-0002-4264-6673, Peers, Cameron and Issartel, Johann orcid logoORCID: 0000-0003-1016-1409 (2021) The differential impact of screen time on children’s wellbeing. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18 (17). ISSN 1661-7827

Abstract
Increased screen time has been found to be associated with a number of negative health and wellbeing indicators in youth populations. An increasing number of studies have investigated the association between screen time and wellbeing in adolescents, but evidence in younger children is still emerging. This 2017 study explored the effect of leisure screen time and gender on dimensions of wellbeing (measured using KIDSCREEN-27) in a national sample of 897 Irish primary school children aged 8–12 years. Participants had a mean age of 10.9 ± 1.16 years and were 47.7% female. Just over 30% of the sample accumulated 2 h or more of leisure screen time daily. Results show that there was no significant interaction between screen time category (<2 h/2 h + daily) and gender on overall wellbeing, while controlling for BMI. Children who self-reported <2 h of leisure screen time scored significantly higher on four dimensions of wellbeing: physical, parental, peers, and school, but not psychological. This study supports the growing evidence of the impact that leisure screen time has on health. Further longitudinal research investigating the impact of sub-categories of leisure screen time behaviour on wellbeing is warranted.
Metadata
Item Type:Article (Published)
Refereed:Yes
Uncontrolled Keywords:leisure screen time; quality of life; health; wellbeing dimension; BMI; youth
Subjects:Medical Sciences > Health
DCU Faculties and Centres:DCU Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Science and Health > School of Health and Human Performance
Research Initiatives and Centres > INSIGHT Centre for Data Analytics
Publisher:MDPI
Official URL:https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18179143
Copyright Information:© 2021 The Authors. Open Access (CC-BY 4.0)
Funders:Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) under Grant Number SFI/12/RC/2289, co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund, GAA’s Research and Games Development department, Dublin GAA
ID Code:27840
Deposited On:11 Oct 2022 08:27 by Thomas Murtagh . Last Modified 25 Jan 2023 15:57
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