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BMC Public Health
Published in: BMC Public Health 1/2015

Open Access 01-12-2015 | Research article

Virtually impossible: limiting Australian children and adolescents daily screen based media use

Authors: Stephen Houghton, Simon C Hunter, Michael Rosenberg, Lisa Wood, Corinne Zadow, Karen Martin, Trevor Shilton

Published in: BMC Public Health | Issue 1/2015

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Abstract

Background

Paediatric recommendations to limit children’s and adolescents’ screen based media use (SBMU) to less than two hours per day appear to have gone unheeded. Given the associated adverse physical and mental health outcomes of SBMU it is understandable that concern is growing worldwide. However, because the majority of studies measuring SBMU have focused on TV viewing, computer use, video game playing, or a combination of these the true extent of total SBMU (including non-sedentary hand held devices) and time spent on specific screen activities remains relatively unknown. This study assesses the amount of time Australian children and adolescents spend on all types of screens and specific screen activities.

Methods

We administered an online instrument specifically developed to gather data on all types of SBMU and SBMU activities to 2,620 (1373 males and 1247 females) 8 to 16 year olds from 25 Australian government and non-government primary and secondary schools.

Results

We found that 45% of 8 year olds to 80% of 16 year olds exceeded the recommended < 2 hours per day for SBMU. A series of hierarchical linear models demonstrated different relationships between the degree to which total SBMU and SBMU on specific activities (TV viewing, Gaming, Social Networking, and Web Use) exceeded the < 2 hours recommendation in relation to sex and age.

Conclusions

Current paediatric recommendations pertaining to SBMU may no longer be tenable because screen based media are central in the everyday lives of children and adolescents. In any reappraisal of SBMU exposure times, researchers, educators and health professionals need to take cognizance of the extent to which SBMU differs across specific screen activity, sex, and age.
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Metadata
Title
Virtually impossible: limiting Australian children and adolescents daily screen based media use
Authors
Stephen Houghton
Simon C Hunter
Michael Rosenberg
Lisa Wood
Corinne Zadow
Karen Martin
Trevor Shilton
Publication date
01-12-2015
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
BMC Public Health / Issue 1/2015
Electronic ISSN: 1471-2458
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-15-5

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