Children's Computer Addiction and Its Influence on Physical Activity - Book Report/Review Example

Journal Article Summary Analysis Description of the Study The article, Children's Screen Viewing in Related to Psychological Difficulties Irrespective of Physical Activity, by Angie S. Page, Ashley R. Cooper, Pippa Griew and Russel Jago was found in the journal Pediatrics. The authors' hypothesis was that if children spent a large amount of time in front of a television or computer, that they would have more psychological distress than if they were only used the television or computer in small amounts. They also hypothesized that if children also had lower levels of physical activity in addition to the increased amount of television or computer use, they would have more negative psychological profiles than others who had less time with television or computer. The researchers studied 1013 children aged ten to eleven years old and they came from 23 primary schools in the Bristol England school district. They were part of a program called the Personal and Environmental Associations with Children's Health Project that was conducted between September 2006 and July 2008. To participate in the study, parents had to give their consent. There were several measures that the researchers employed in order to understand each aspect of what they studied. The children were first measured by the amount of sedentary time they spent using an accelerometer. The children were told to wear the accelerometer while they were awake for seven days consecutively. They were to wear them on a belt around their waist for the seven days. The accelerometers were programmed to record information (data) every ten seconds and then it was put into one minute epochs. They defined sedentary time as "any minute in which 2000 accelerometer counts were recorded" (p. 1012). The last measure was for psychological difficulties and these were measured through the use of a self-report instrument called the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) because it is a well-known inventory that tests psychological well-being in children. There were 25 items that children responded to, measured on a three point scale and scored from 0 to 2. From the 25, 20 were used to create a total difficulty scale from the sum of those 20. Using these scores as a foundation, the researchers also created categories that represented low scores (0-14) borderline (15-19) and high scores (20-40) for the levels of psychological difficulty. The Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) 2007 was used to score the participant's information within their postal code. This code was based on six different categories that included "income, employment, health and disability, educational skills and training, housing, and geographical access to services" (p. 1013); a higher score was indicative of a higher level of deprivation. They also measured pubertal status by using another scale that was developed by another researcher (this was not defined specifically in the footnotes or in the article) and by using five of the derived states. They measured BMI for the children by using height (in meters using a stadiometer) and weight in kilograms (using a digital scale). Children wore indoor clothing but no shoes for the height and weight measurements. The BMI tables were then used to record the specific BMI for each child. Data was collected and means and standard deviations were established by calculating all variables. Children were included in the analysis if they met the criterion of > 3days of accelerometer data, and Read More