Media use, attention, mental health and academic performance among 8 to 12 year old children

Article Article scientifique Article Media use, attention, mental health and academic performance among 8 to 12 year old children eng 2021-11-17 2021-11-17 author Cardoso-Leite Pedro 0000-0002-2848-5527 author Buchard Albert 843137 author Tissieres Isabel 0000-0002-1104-8240 803840 author Mussack Dominic author Bavelier Daphné 0000-0002-5904-1240 737548 e0259163 10.1371/journal.pone.0259163 34788306 1932-6203 PMC8598050 https://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259163 The rise in digital media consumption, especially among children, raises the societal question of its impact on cognition, mental health and academic achievement. Here, we investigate three different ways of measuring technology use-—total hours of media consumed, hours of video game play and number of media used concurrently—-in 118 eight-to-twelve year-old children. At stake is the question of whether different technology uses have different effects, which could explain some of the past mixed findings. We collected data about children’s media uses as well as (i) attentional and behavioral control abilities, (ii) psychological distress, psychosocial functioning, and sleep, and (iii) academic achievement and motivation. While attentional control abilities were assessed using both cognitive tests and questionnaires, mental health and sleep were all questionnaire-based. Finally, academic performance was based on self-reported grades, with motivational variables being measured through the grit and the growth-mindset questionnaires. We present partial correlation analyses and construct a psychological network to assess the structural associations between different forms of media consumption and the three categories of measures. We observe that children consume large amounts of media and media multitask substantially. Partial correlation analyses show that media multitasking specifically was mostly correlated with negative mental health, while playing video games was associated with faster responding and better mental health. No significant partial correlations were observed for total hours on media. Psychological network analysis complement these first results by indicating that all three ways of consuming technology are only indirectly related to self-reported grades. Thus, technology uses appear to only indirectly relate to academic performance, while more directly affecting mental health. This work emphasizes the need to differentiate among technology uses if one is to understand how every day digital consumption impacts human behavior. <p></p> Dewey 150 Swiss National Science Foundation Determinants of pattern learning: What role for attentional control? 100014_159506 CH Project funding Fonds National de la Recherche Luxembourg ATTRACT/2016/ID/11242114/DIGILEARN Jacobs Foundation 108 Section de psychologie 71 false 1373 Brain & Learning Lab https://osf.io/aj2bc/ PloS one 16 11 fdf7faf9-3891-4633-ae13-94249c12272e Article (Published version) Public Article-scientifique-from-unpaywall.pdf 1305243 application/pdf CC BY openAccess Faculté de psychologie et des sciences de l'éducation / Section de psychologie

Title	Published in	Year	Views	Downloads

Media use, attention, mental health and academic performance among 8 to 12 year old children	PloS one	2021	174	88
Sustained Attention and Intra-Individual Reaction Time Variability in 8 To 12 Years Old Children		2015	73	1

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Tissieres, Isabel