Internet Addiction of School-Age Children and the Effects of Daily Habits

Abstract

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Internet use among school-age children has increased, and the age at first contact with a mobile device has decreased. Although the elucidation of the risks and health problems due to excessive internet usage by parents and health professionals has led to children developing a perspective on and normalized the comprehension of classes that are accessed through the internet at home. All previous studies focused only on limited age groups, such as preschool, adolescents, and adults (university students). MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study was conducted at a tertiary research hospital in April-October 2019 with the participation of parents of 320 children who were given a questionnaire in addition to the Young Internet Addiction Test-Short Form. RESULTS: The data revealed that 33% of children had first contact with mobile devices between the age of 5 and 9. It was found that 18.4% of respondents had problematic internet use and 7.2% had internet addiction. Moreover, while 26% of the children postponed toilet use while engaged with mobile devices, 6% experienced digestion problems, 31% encountered eye-related complaints, 6% had urinary problems, and 22% had musculoskeletal problems due to internet usage. When parents considered their children's daily self-hygiene or self-needs, 11% indicated that their children tended to postpone these issues significantly in terms of IA. CONCLUSION: To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to include a school-age population aged 7-18 years. Therefore, our objective was not only to research the sociodemographic features, the duration spent on the virtual environment, the frequency and type of virtual media use, but also to evaluate the current situation of IA among children, raising awareness due to the health and security risks that IA may cause and to highlight the prevention of those risks, Internet usage must be examined on healthy child visits to identify the effects on children's and adolescents' physical and mental health.