Addictive use of digital devices in young children: Associations with delay discounting, self-control and academic performance

Holistic exploration of reading comprehension skills, technology and socioeconomic factors in Spanish teenagers

The intricate relationship between teenagers' literacy and technology underscores the need for a comprehensive understanding, particularly in the Spanish context. This study employs explainable artificial intelligence (AI) to delve into this complex interplay, focusing on the pivotal role of reading comprehension skills in the personal and career development of Spanish teenagers. With a sample of 22,400 15-year-olds from the PISA dataset, we investigate the impact of socioeconomic factors, technology habits, parental education, residential location, and school type on reading comprehension skills. Utilizing machine learning techniques, our analysis reveals a nuanced connection between autonomy, technological proficiency, and academic performance. Notably, family oversight of technology use emerges as a crucial factor in managing the impact of digital technology and the Internet on reading comprehension skills. The study emphasizes the necessity for a balanced and supervised introduction to technology from an early age. Contrary to current trends, our findings indicate that online gaming may not contribute positively to reading comprehension skills, while moderate daily Internet use (1-4 h) proves beneficial. Furthermore, the study underscores the ongoing nature of acquiring reading comprehension and technological skills, emphasizing the need for continuous attention and guidance from childhood. Parental education levels are identified as partial predictors of children's performance, emphasizing the importance of a holistic educational approach that considers autonomy and technological literacy. This study advocates for addressing socio-economic and gender inequalities in education and highlights the crucial role of cooperation between schools and families, particularly those with lower educational levels.

Digital Interventions for Combating Internet Addiction in Young Children: Qualitative Study of Parent and Therapist Perspectives

BACKGROUND

Internet addiction is an emerging mental health issue in this digital age. Nowadays, children start using the internet in early childhood, thus making them vulnerable to addictive use. Previous studies have reported that the risk of internet addiction tends to be higher in lower-income regions with lower quality of life, such as Indonesia. Indonesia has high risks and prevalence of internet addiction, including in children. Digital interventions have been developed as an option to combat internet addiction in children. However, little is known about what parents and therapists in Indonesia perceive about these types of interventions.

OBJECTIVE

This study aims to investigate the experiences, perceptions, and considerations of parents and therapists regarding digital interventions for combating internet addiction in young Indonesian children.

METHODS

This study used a qualitative exploratory approach through semistructured interviews. We involved 22 parents of children aged 7 to 11 years and 6 experienced internet addiction therapists for children. The interview data were transcribed and analyzed using thematic analysis.

RESULTS

Participants in this study recognized 3 existing digital interventions to combat internet addiction: Google Family Link, YouTube Kids, and Apple parental control. They perceived that digital interventions could be beneficial in continuously promoting healthy digital behavior in children and supporting parents in supervision. However, the existing interventions were not highly used due to limitations such as the apps' functionality and usability, parental capability, parent-child relationships, cultural incompatibility, and data privacy.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings suggest that digital interventions should focus not only on restricting and monitoring screen time but also on suggesting substitutive activities for children, developing children's competencies to combat addictive behavior, improving digital literacy in children and parents, and supporting parental decision-making to promote healthy digital behavior in their children. Suggestions for future digital interventions are provided, such as making the existing features more usable and relatable, investigating gamification features to enhance parental motivation and capability in managing their children's internet use, providing tailored or personalized content to suit users' characteristics, and considering the provision of training and information about the use of interventions and privacy agreements.

A Holistic Investigation of the Relationship between Digital Addiction and Academic Achievement among Students

Digital addiction (DA), an umbrella term referring to addiction to any type of digital media, such as the internet, smartphone, digital games, and social media, is a significant factor influencing students' academic achievement (AA). Many scholars have contributed to this line of research from around the world. Nevertheless, the literature lacks a holistic investigation of how the DA-AA research field evolved, which could guide future studies. The current study aims to address this void and conducts a combined bibliometric and science mapping analysis of research addressing the relationship between DA and AA. Data were retrieved from the WoS database, considered one of the optimal databases for such studies with its comprehensive coverage of quality journals. One hundred eighteen articles were included in the final dataset and were analyzed using the SciMAT software, which allowed analysis over three consecutive periods and yielded comparable results regarding the conceptual and thematic evolution of the DA-AA domain. The results indicated an increased research interest in the topic, especially during the last five years. The science mapping analysis showed that the most-studied types of addiction were smartphone addiction for the first two periods and social media addiction for the last. Research in the DA-AA domain which focused on understanding the addictive use of smartphones during the first period, evolved to address factors such as self-efficacy or life satisfaction leading to smartphone addiction and lower grades. During the third period, the number of factors addressed gained significant variety and covered family-related and personal factors.

The digital addiction scale for children: psychometric properties of the Turkish version

The increase in the use of digital devices among children in recent years has revealed the problem of digital addiction. The Digital Addiction Scale for Children (DASC) is used for early detection of the risk of digital addiction among children. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the Turkish version of the DASC. The data were collected from 670 children aged 9-14. Results supported acceptable goodness-of-fit indices for the one-dimensional factor structure of the DASC. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis showed measurement invariance across gender. The Turkish version of the DASC indicated excellent internal consistency reliability, composite reliability, test-retest reliability, and adequate convergent and criterion-related validities. The results provided strong validity and reliability evidence, in line with the previous study, showing that the DASC is a psychometrically sound instrument to assess digital addiction in Turkish children and early adolescents.

Determination of the psychometric properties of the digital addiction scale for children

AIM

To determine the psychometric properties of the Digital Addiction Scale for Children.

DESIGN AND METHOD

This methodological study included 506 children aged 9-12 years. Data were collected using the child and family information form, the digital addiction scale for children and the digital game addiction scale for children. The data were evaluated using confirmatory factor analysis Cronbach's alpha, convergent validity, and gender-based measurement invariance analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis was applied using Mplus 8.7 with robust maximum likelihood estimation procedures.

RESULTS

Confirmatory factor were performed for construct validity. The scale was found to have good model fit indicators. The factor loadings of all the components were found to be >0.40. Convergent validity of Digital addiction scale for children and digital game addiction scale showed a significant positive high correlation. The total Cronbach alpha value of the scale was determined as 0.94, and the Cronbach alpha values of the subscales as Interpersonal 0.89, and Intrapersonal 0.91.

CONCLUSION

The use of the digital addiction scale for children was determined to be a valid and reliable scale for the screening of digital device use and digital addiction in a Turkish sample.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

Nurses and other health professionals have an important role in detecting situations that put children's health at risk and promoting positive behaviors. It is especially important that school health nurses use valid and reliable tools that can determine children's digital addictions. Since this scale is easy and practical, it is thought that it will contribute significantly to the literature.

Laptop use and muscle activity in adult females: Ground sitting has lower muscular demand than using a chair

BACKGROUND

With progressing technology in the portable computing field, laptops are now integral for work, home and social settings. Different working postures adopted by laptop users impose different loads on the relevant muscles, which can be associated with musculoskeletal discomfort in the various body regions. Some Arabic and Asian cultures adopted postures are not well investigated, particularly for the 20-30 years age-group.

OBJECTIVE

This study compared muscle activity in the cervical spine, arm, and wrist among different laptop workstation setups.

METHODS

In this cross-sectional study, 23 healthy female university students (age = 24.2±2.28 years, range 20-26 years) performed a standardized 10 minute typing task in four different laptop workstation setups: DESK, SOFA, GROUND sitting with back support, and laptop table (LAP-Tab). Differences between electromyography (EMG) muscle activity recorded in the trapezius (TR), cervical extensors (CE), deltoid (DEL), and wrist extensors (WE) were determined using one-way repeated ANOVA measures with a post-hoc Bonferroni test.

RESULTS

Significantly higher muscle activity was observed respectively in the workstations of DESK > LAP-Tab > SOFA > GROUND. Significant differences were found between WE muscle activity and the three other muscle groups (p < 0.001). There was a significant interaction between workstations and muscle activity (F(9,264) = 3.81, p < 0.001, = 0.11), where the WE and DEL muscles showed respectively higher and lower muscle activity in all setups.

CONCLUSION

Muscles showed variable activity in different workstations such that the GROUND workstation provided the minimum load, while the DESK workstation showed the maximum load on the measured muscle groups. These findings require further investigation in different cultural and gender specific groups.

The effect of cognitive ability on academic achievement: The mediating role of self-discipline and the moderating role of planning

In this study, 572 secondary school students aged 15–18 years old stage were selected to study the effect of their cognitive ability and self-discipline and planning on academic achievement. Cognitive ability was classified into memory ability, representational ability, information processing ability, logical reasoning ability, and thinking conversion ability, and analyzed the effects of these five ability values on academic achievement. The mediating effect of self-discipline ability between cognitive ability and academic achievement was analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM), and the moderating role of planning in the mediating effect was analyzed using planning as a moderating variable. The results showed that cognitive ability can have a significant positive effect on academic achievement, while self-discipline plays a partially mediating role between cognitive ability and academic achievement, and the moderating effect of Planning is significant in the second half of the mediating effect, i.e., the effect of self-discipline on academic achievement changes as the level of planning increases, and the mediating effect is stronger in the condition of higher planning, and the mediating model with moderating effect holds.

[The Influence of Parental Self-Esteem on Late School-Aged Children's Media Device Addiction: The Mediating Effect of Marital Conflict and Children's Self-Esteem]

PURPOSE

This study aimed to examine the effect of parental self-esteem on late school-aged children's media device addiction by mediating marital conflict and children's self-esteem.

METHODS

This study used data from the 11th (2018) Panel Study on Korean Children. The participants consisted of 1,082 family triads (fathers, mothers, and children). Data were collected using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Marital Conflict Scale, and K-Internet Addiction Scale. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling with SPSS/WIN 27.0 and Mplus 8.7.

RESULTS

The final model showed a good fit for the data. Children's media device addiction was directly related to mothers' self-esteem, mothers' marital conflict, and children's self-esteem. Fathers' self-esteem had a significant indirect effect on children's media device addiction by mediating both fathers' and mothers' marital conflict. In addition, mothers' self-esteem had a significant indirect effect on children's media device addiction by mediating mothers' marital conflict.

CONCLUSION

The findings indicates that self-esteem and marital conflict for both fathers and mothers have a significant effect on children's media device addiction. It suggests that more attention might be given to fathers and mothers in developing interventions to prevent children's media device addiction.

Cognitive Ability and Self-Control's Influence on High School Students' Comprehensive Academic Performance

This study uses a hierarchical linear model (HLM) to examine the effects of cognitive ability and self-control on comprehensive academic performance among students in a high school in Beijing. The study included 572 participating students, including 291 boys and 281 girls, ranging in age from 16 to 18 years old. In this study, the individual level of students’ cognitive abilities are used as the first-level variables, including memory ability (MA), information processing ability (IPA), representation ability (RA), logical reasoning ability (LRA), and thinking transformation ability (TCA). Consider self-control at the class level as the second-level variable. The research results show that the five cognitive abilities have a significant positive impact on comprehensive academic performance. Self-control plays an active role in regulating the relationship between RA, LRA, TCA, and comprehensive academic performance.

Delay Discounting in Established and Proposed Behavioral Addictions: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Steep delay discounting, or a greater preference for smaller-immediate rewards over larger-delayed rewards, is a common phenomenon across a range of substance use and psychiatric disorders. Non-substance behavioral addictions (e.g., gambling disorder, internet gaming disorder, food addiction) are of increasing interest in delay discounting research. Individual studies have reported steeper discounting in people exhibiting various behavioral addictions compared to controls or significant correlations between discounting and behavioral addiction scales; however, not all studies have found significant effects. To synthesize the published research in this area and identify priorities for future research, we conducted a pre-registered systematic review and meta-analysis (following PRISMA guidelines) of delay discounting studies across a range of behavioral addiction categories. The final sample included 78 studies, yielding 87 effect sizes for the meta-analysis. For studies with categorical designs, we found statistically significant, medium-to-large effect sizes for gambling disorder (Cohen’s d = 0.82) and IGD (d = 0.89), although the IGD effect size was disproportionately influenced by a single study (adjusted d = 0.53 after removal). Categorical internet/smartphone studies were non-significant (d = 0.16, p = 0.06). Aggregate correlations in dimensional studies were statistically significant, but generally small magnitude for gambling (r = 0.22), internet/smartphone (r = 0.13) and food addiction (r = 0.12). Heterogeneity statistics suggested substantial variability across studies, and publication bias indices indicated moderate impact of unpublished or small sample studies. These findings generally suggest that some behavioral addictions are associated with steeper discounting, with the most robust evidence for gambling disorder. Importantly, this review also highlighted several categories with notably smaller effect sizes or categories with too few studies to be included (e.g., compulsive buying, exercise addiction). Further research on delay discounting in behavioral addictions is warranted, particularly for categories with relatively few studies.