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Television, games console, smartphone, computer… Parents and specialists are concerned about the effects of screens on the cognition, behavior and well-being of young people. A Finnish study, published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, will not reassure them. It highlights the impact of screens, whatever they may be, on school attendance.
The research team that wrote it arrived at this conclusion after analyzing data from a cohort of 86,270 students, aged 14 to 16. They particularly focused on the duration of their sleep, the relationships these adolescents have with their parents and the number of days per week during which they are moving for at least an hour. The researchers also asked young people to evaluate their Internet use to determine if it affects the quality of their sleep and their diet, or if it causes them to neglect their loved ones and their studies.
It appeared that young people sleep on average eight hours on weekday evenings and nine hours on weekends. However, a third of them sleep less than eight hours during the week, which is lower than the recommendations of sleep specialists. Another observation: adolescents provide little physical effort during their daily life. Boys were more likely than girls to be too sedentary. While many explanations can be put forward to explain this data, the increase in time spent in front of screens has a lot to do with it.
This phenomenon is not without consequences on the school life of young people. The study reveals that 3 to 4% of young people are often absent from classrooms. Here again, we observe differences between the sexes. Boys are more likely to skip school than girls, who are absent for health reasons.
While young people are more likely to skip classes as they get older, spending too much time in front of screens is also associated with an increased risk of truancy. And this, whether the absences in question are unjustified or not. Fortunately, this situation is not inevitable. “Good relationships with parents, longer nights of sleep during the week and physical activity are significant protective factors“, say the researchers in a statement.
As alarming as they are, the conclusions of this study should however be taken with caution given that the latter is, above all, observational. Nevertheless, “[n]Our findings are relevant to professionals working in school health and wellness services, particularly when encountering students with concerning rates of absenteeism.“, say the scientists.
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