Young people who spend too much time online are more likely to miss school due to illness or truancy, a study has suggested.
Teenage girls appear to be more likely than teenage boys to score high on excessive internet use, the findings indicate. But a good amount of sleep and exercise and a trusting relationship with their parents seem to go some way to reducing the effects of extreme web use on classroom absences.
The findings of the research, led by a team in Finland, were published in the Archives of childhood illness journal.
To try to gauge what impact excessive internet use might have on school attendance and what, if any, mitigating factors there might be, the team used data from the School Health Promotion study, a survey conducted in Finland and conducted by the country’s Institute for Health is managed. and Welfare.
They focused on 86,270 Year 8 and 9 pupils aged 14 to 16. The teenagers were specifically asked about their relationship with their parents in terms of how often they shared concerns with them, as well as how long they slept each night, and about how many days of the week were they on the move for at least an hour.
Excessive Internet use was assessed by measuring five lifestyle factors indicative of compulsion: neglect of family, friends and study; anxiety if not online; and fail to eat or sleep because you are online.
Respondents were asked to estimate how often they experienced each of these, scoring them from one (never) to four (very often) to provide an overall average. They also provided information on how many times during the most recent school year they had been absent or absent due to illness.
The scale’s mean score was just under two, and just over 2% (1,881) of participants scored the maximum of four. Girls were more likely to use the Internet excessively than boys, the researchers found.
Spending an excessive amount of time online was associated with an increased risk of truancy (38% increased risk) and medically excused school absences (24% increased risk).
But good parental relationships, longer nightly sleep and physical activity all emerged as significantly protective, with more of each factor associated with a gradually decreasing risk of truancy and school absence due to illness.
Being able to talk about concerns with parents was most strongly associated with the lowest risk of any type of school absence. Teenagers who often felt they could share distressing problems with their parents were 59% less likely to play truant and 39% less likely to be absent from school due to illness.
This is an observational study and no firm conclusions could be drawn about causal factors. The researchers acknowledged that the school health promotion data did not include information about the type of internet use teenagers were engaging in.
“Despite the limitations, our results have important implications for promoting health and educational achievement,” the researchers said. “Our results are relevant to professionals who organize and work in school health and wellness services, especially when professionals meet students whose school absence is a concern.”
