Screen Use, Lifestyle Behaviours and Psychosocial Health in Adolescent Females

Research Report Screen Use, Lifestyle Behaviours and Psychosocial Health in Adolescent Females

Report authors Deirdre Harrington, Ekaterini Ioannidou, Melanie Davies, Charlotte Edwardson, Trish Gorely, Alex Rowlands, Lauren Sherar, Amanda Staiano

Published by Acta Paediatrica, February 2021

SUMMARY

A group of 816 girls between the ages of 11 and 14 wore an accelerometer on their wrist for seven days to calculate the time they spent doing physical activity, sleeping and sitting down. They reported back on all the screens they used during the study period. The research was carried out before the pandemic, when adolescents have been spending more time on their devices.

The researchers, from the Leicester Diabetes Centre at the university, found mobile or smart phones were the most common screen for participants to own or have access to. In all, 94.3 per cent had access to a mobile or smart phone followed by tablets at 77.3 per cent then laptops at 71.4 per cent. The most used screen device at all times of day was the mobile/smart phone. TV was the second most used device after school, in the evening and at weekends. But at bedtime a tablet was the second most used device.