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

TLDR

Paediatric guidelines limiting screen‑based media use to less than two hours per day are largely ignored, and the true extent of total SBMU—including handheld devices—is poorly understood despite known adverse physical and mental health effects. This study evaluates how much time Australian children and adolescents spend on all screen types and specific activities, and highlights the need to account for differences by activity, sex, and age when revising SBMU recommendations. Researchers collected data from 2,620 8‑ to 16‑year‑old students across 25 Australian schools using an online instrument designed to capture all SBMU types and activities. Results show that 45% of 8‑year‑olds to 80% of 16‑year‑olds exceed the two‑hour limit, with hierarchical models revealing sex‑ and age‑dependent patterns across TV, gaming, social networking, and web use, suggesting current recommendations are no longer tenable.

Abstract

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. 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. 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. 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.