Abstract
Title
A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY TO DETERMINE THE
IMPACT OF SCREEN DEPENDENCY UPON MENTAL
HEALTH, SLEEP PATTERN, SOCIAL CONNECTEDNESS AND
EATING BEHAVIOUR AMONG SCHOOL GOING CHILDREN
Author
Divya R Kammath1*, Dr. Starmine C 2, Prof. Dr. Namitha Subrahmanyam3,
Prof. Dr. Preethy Jawahar
Email
divyakammath1983@gmail.com
keyword
Screen addiction; Mental disorders;
Sleep quality; Social isolation; eating disorders;
Screen time; Socialization; Stress
Abstract
An excessive screen time increasingly emerges as a
critical threat to child development. Understanding
its effects on mental health, sleep patterns, social
connectedness, and eating behaviors is imperative.
The research question of this study was, how does
screen dependency affects mental health, sleep
pattern, social connectedness and eating behavior
among school going children. The objectives were
to estimate the magnitude of screen dependency,
mental health, sleep pattern, social connectedness
and eating behavior. Also, to determine the
relationship and to identify association of screen
dependency with mental health, sleep pattern, social
connectedness and eating behavior with the selected
socio demographic variables. The data was collected
from a sample of 203 school going children selected
by non-probability convenient sampling technique.
A socio demographic questionnaire, Multiple screen
addiction scale, WEMWB scale, PSQ index, revised
social connectedness scale and Johnson AFH
checklist were used to collect data. The study
concluded that, screen dependency had a weak
negative correlation (? =-0.124) with mental health,
a weak positive correlation (? = 0.108) with sleep
pattern, a weak negative correlation (? = -0.08) with
social connectedness and a weak negative
correlation (? = -0.054) with eating behaviour. Also,
there was a significant association of screen
dependency with type of screen used (p=0.007) and education of father (p= 0.047). The study also found
a significant association of mental health with
gender (p=0.046), self-reported academic
performance (p=0.001) and education of father (p =
0.087). In addition to this, there was a significant
association found in sleep pattern with birth order of
the child (p=0.005) and social connectedness with
gender (p= 0.008). To conclude, screen dependency
is preventable by establishing clear screen time
limits. Minimising screen time to a reasonable
duration that gives direct impact on mental health,
sleep pattern, social connectedness, and eating
behaviour
