Young people who spend too much time online are more likely to miss school due to illness or skipping school, a study suggests.
Findings indicate that teenage girls appear to be more likely than teenage boys to score higher on excessive Internet use. But adequate sleep and exercise, as well as a trusting relationship with parents, appear to reduce the impact of excessive Internet use on school absences to some extent.
The findings, led by a Finnish team, were published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.
To try to measure what impact excessive Internet use might have on school attendance, and what mitigating factors, if any, there might be, the team used data from the School Health Promotion Study, a study conducted in Finland and led by Survey and benefits administered by the National Institutes of Health.
They focused on 86,270 8th and 9th grade students aged 14 to 16 years. The teens were asked specifically about their relationships with their parents, including how often they shared worries with them, how much sleep they got each night and how many days they slept. Several days of the week they move at least an hour.
Excessive Internet use was assessed by measuring five lifestyle factors that indicate compulsivity: neglect of family, friends, and studies; feeling anxious when not online; and being unable to eat or sleep due to being online.
Respondents were asked to estimate how often they experienced each condition, rating it from one (never) to four (often) to arrive at an overall mean. They also provided information on the number of truants or sick absences during the most recent school year.
The average score on this scale was just under 2, with just over 2% (1,881) of participants scoring the highest score of 4. Researchers found that girls were more likely than boys to use the Internet excessively.
Excessive time spent online was associated with an increased risk of truancy (38% increased risk) and missing school for medical reasons (24% increased risk).
But good parental relationships, more sleep per night on weekdays, and physical activity all had significant protective effects, and increases in each factor were associated with steadily lower risks of illness-related truancy and absence from school.
Being able to talk to parents about concerns was strongly associated with the lowest risk of both types of absences. Teenagers who regularly feel able to share troubles with their parents are 59% less likely to skip school and 39% less likely to miss school due to illness.
This is an observational study and cannot draw firm conclusions about causal factors. The researchers acknowledge that school health promotion data do not include information on the types of Internet use that teenagers use.
“Despite limitations, our results have important implications for promoting health and educational attainment,” said the researchers. “Our findings are relevant to organizations and professionals working in school health and wellbeing services, particularly when professionals encounter to students whose absences raise concerns.”