[Relationship between prolonged media usage and lifestyle habits among junior and senior high school students]

Objective　In recent years, the long-term use of media (including the Internet, video games, and social networking services) at a young age has been regarded as a problem. It has been pointed out that prolonged media usage may have an undesirable effect on the growth of adolescents from the physical, mental, and social perspectives. Junior and senior high school students are in a particularly important period of self-management of the basic lifestyle habits acquired thus far. Additionally, they must cultivate the ability to interact appropriately with media used daily. In this study, we investigated the relationship between the time expended on media usage and lifestyle habits among junior and senior high school students.Methods　A sample of 1,633 students was extracted from all junior and senior high schools in Fukushima City. Principals of the schools distributed a self-administered questionnaire to their students. In total, 1,589 responses were obtained; as surveys of 30 students were missing values for gender and grade, they were excluded from the analysis, and data from 1,559 respondents were ultimately analyzed. A binomial logistic regression analysis was performed to examine the relationship between an independent variable (media usage time) and dependent variables (subjective health, lifestyle habits, and drinking and smoking experience) while controlling for gender and grade.Results　Among junior high students, media usage for more than three hours was significantly related to "no breakfast," "no exercise habits," "irregular sleep," "lack of rest," and "feeling stressed." Among high school students, media usage for three hours or more was significantly related to "poor subjective health status," "eating only one or two meals a day," "no breakfast," "low food diversity," "obesity," "no exercise habits," "irregular sleep," "late bedtime," "waking up late," "drinking," and "smoking."Conclusion　Our findings indicate that three or more hours of daily media usage is related to unhealthy lifestyles in terms of sleeping, eating, physical activity, drinking, and smoking. Junior and senior high school students who responded to the survey indicated that prolonged usage was also adversely related to their subjective health. Because the overuse of media is associated with students' lifestyles and health, it is important to develop an educational system that helps junior and senior high school students use media properly.