The effect of screen exposure on children' psychological well-being: Emotion regulation and family functioning role

Digital screen affects not only adults but also adolescent and children and even preschool children. It becomes phenomenon that creates an effect on those groups, family life, communication and interaction among them. Digital screen becomes research issue that focus on not only relation between human being and screen but also interruption person to person interaction. When factors that predict screen exposure time are found, risk groups can be determined. That's why it is important to explore risk factors and risk group related to screen exposure time. The purpose of this study is to determine effect of exposure time on self-regulation, emotion regulation and psychological well-being of middle school aged children. For this purpose, the data was collected mainly 6 secondary school in Ankara. 326 children and their parent (either mother or father) participated in the current study. 204 of them are female students and 122 of them are male students and their age range was 11 to 14. Daily and weekly screen exposure time was taken from children. Children's questionnaire set consisted of scales that are Demographic Variable Sheet, Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), Adolescent for Self-Regulation Inventory (ASRI), Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ). Similarly, parent's questionnaire set consisted of scales that are Demographic Variable Sheet, Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire, Adolescent for Self-Regulation Inventory, Emotion Regulation Questionnaire for their children and Short Symptom Inventory, Abidin Parent Stress Inventory, and lastly Dyadic Adjustment Scale for themselves. The study consists of three different purposes. First, discrepancies between parent' and children' reports on children' exposure time, self-regulation difficulties, emotion regulation difficulties and psychological well-being were examined. Second, factors associated with children' screen exposure time such as self-regulation and emotion regulation difficulties, psychological well-being, parental stress and parental marriage adjustment were studied. The results indicated that children reported higher level of screen time, psychological problems as compared to reports of parent for their children. As expected, children's regulation abilities were significantly associated with their screen exposure even after controlling the effects of socio- demographic variables, parental stress and their marriage adjustment. Finally, regression analysis was conducted to determine factors associated with children's psychological well-being. The results showed that children's psychological well-being was significantly associated with both screen exposure time and regulation abilities even after controlling the effects of socio- demographic variables, parental stress and their marriage adjustment. Findings were discussed within the relevant literature. At last, limitations of the study, suggestions for new studies and clinical implications of the study were stated.