Characteristics of media use in 1-18 year old children

Objective : The objective of this study is to investigate the frequency of media consumption and the factors affecting it in the children of 1-18 age Materials and methods: The study is composed of 300 children of 1-18 age who applied to Pediatrics, Social Pediatrics, and Ambulatory Pediatrics polyclinics of Aegean University between March 2016 and March 2017. After the verbal consent was taken from mothers/fathers, a survey form was filled in including sociodemographic features of children, media consumption frequency of the child and the parents, sleeplessness problem, if the child has indocibility/tantrum or not, school success if the child attends to a school. The child's weight and height are measured. The data obtained from the study were analyzed by SPSS Statistics 18.0 program. First, descriptive statistics were made for all variables. For the difference between categorical variables, chi square test was held; Pearson correlation analysis was applied for the relationship between numeric variables. Student t test was used to analyze if there is any difference between two groups in terms of numeric variables, but when there are more than two groups, one way analysis of variance was used (ANOVA). Linear regression analysis was applied in order to analyze the effect of independent variables on dependent variable in the event that dependent variables are numeric. Logistic regression analysis was used to examine the effects of independent variables on dependent variable in the event that dependent variable is of two categories. When P< 0,05 it was regarded as statistically significant. Findings: Of all the 300 children included in the study, 166 were males (55.3%) and 134 were female (44.7%), and 29% of them (n=87) were the only child of the family. The rate of mothers having received 5 years or less education was 28.7%, while that of the mothers having received 12 years or more education was 26.7% (n=80). The number of families with 1500 TRY or less was 21% (n=64), while the rate of families with 4500 TRY or more was 24% (n= 72). The average duration of TV watching was 12.2 ± 0.9 hours per week for children aged 1 to 4, and 12.1 ± 1.1 hours for children aged 13-18 years. 72% of children between one and four years of age had total media use for 14 hours or more per week. Pearson correlation analysis showed that as the age of children increased, the duration of TV watching decreased (r = -0.27, P <0.01), but the duration of mobile phone usage increased (r = 0.56, P <0.01). Logistic regression analysis, indicated that girls and subjects younger than 5 year whose fathers had completed 5 years or less of education were more likely to watch TV for more than 14 hours per week (P <0.05). Likewise, it was observed that the when the age of the child was great, male gender, single child of the family, and has a own computer was the factor that increased the computer use (P <0.05). In the logistic regression model, the use of mobile phones for 14 hours or more per week was identified as a factor causing insomnia in children (P <0.001). Likewise, the use of mobile phones over 14 hours per week was noted as one of the factors increasing children's aggression / anger attacks (P <0.001). In 14.7% of the children studied, the BMI z score was ≥2. However, there was no relationship between obesity and media use durations in the logistic regression model (P> 0.05). Conclusion: The data obtained from this study showed that media usage times in young children were more than those of international scientific organizations. In children older than thirteen, weekly mobile phone usage is high and associated with insomnia in children. For this reason, it is extremely important to inform parents about the use of conscious media during child health monitoring. Key words: Media, childhood, TV, computer, mobile phone.