Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2018 Mar 7;18(1):332.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-018-5240-0.

A latent growth curve model to estimate electronic screen use patterns amongst adolescents aged 10 to 17 years

Michael Rosenberg  1 , Stephen Houghton  2   3 , Simon C Hunter  2   3 , Corinne Zadow  2 , Trevor Shilton  4   5 , Lisa Wood  4 , David Lawrence  2
Affiliations

A latent growth curve model to estimate electronic screen use patterns amongst adolescents aged 10 to 17 years

Michael Rosenberg et al. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: High quality, longitudinal data describing young people's screen use across a number of distinct forms of screen activity is missing from the literature. This study tracked multiple screen use activities (passive screen use, gaming, social networking, web searching) amongst 10- to 17-year-old adolescents across 24 months.

Methods: This study tracked the screen use of 1948 Australian students in Grade 5 (n = 636), Grade 7 (n = 672), and Grade 9 (n = 640) for 24 months. At approximately six-month intervals, students reported their total screen time as well as time spent on social networking, passive screen use, gaming, and web use. Patterns of screen use were determined using latent growth curve modelling.

Results: In the Grades 7 and 9 cohorts, girls generally reported more screen use than boys (by approximately one hour a day), though all cohorts of boys reported more gaming. The different forms of screen use were remarkably stable, though specific cohorts showed change for certain forms of screen activity.

Conclusion: These results highlight the diverse nature of adolescent screen use and emphasise the need to consider both grade and sex in future research and policy.

Keywords: Adolescents; Electronic screen use; Guidelines.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Ethics approval was provided for this study by the University of Western Australia’s Human Research Ethics Committee and the State Department of Education Ethics Committee. Active Principal consent was obtained for school participation. Active Parental/Guardian consent and Child assent was obtained for child participation in this study.

Consent for publication

Not applicable

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Representation of the cohort-sequential LGCM
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Representation of the multi-group LGCM
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Conditional, multi-group Latent Growth Curve Model results for overall screen time
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Conditional, multi-group Latent Growth Curve Model results for time spent social networking
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Conditional, multi-group Latent Growth Curve Model results for time spent gaming
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
Conditional, multi-group Latent Growth Curve Model results for time spent on web use
Fig. 7
Fig. 7
Conditional, multi-group Latent Growth Curve Model results for time spent on passive screen use
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Anderson SE, Economos CD. Must a: active play and screen time in US children aged 4 to 11 years in relation to sociodemographic and weight status characteristics: a nationally representative cross-sectional analysis. BMC Public Health. 2008;8(1):1. doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-8-366. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Biddle SJ, Pearson N, Ross GM, Braithwaite R. Tracking of sedentary behaviours of young people: a systematic review. Prev Med. 2010;51(5):345–351. doi: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2010.07.018. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Cain N, Gradisar M. Electronic media use and sleep in school-aged children and adolescents: a review. Sleep Med. 2010;11(8):735–742. doi: 10.1016/j.sleep.2010.02.006. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Lenhart A, Purcell K, Smith A, Zickuhr K. Social Media & Mobile Internet use among teens and young adults. Washington, DC: Millennials: Pew Internet & American Life Project; 2010.
    1. Granich J, Rosenberg M, Knuiman MW, Timperio A. Individual, social, and physical environment factors associated with electronic media use among children: sedentary behavior at home. J Phys Act Health. 2011;8(5):613. doi: 10.1123/jpah.8.5.613. - DOI - PubMed

Publication types