UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti, Florence, Italy.
Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK.
J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2020 Aug;61(8):875-889. doi: 10.1111/jcpp.13280. Epub 2020 Jul 7.
Evidence on whether the amount of time children spend online affects their mental health is mixed. There may be both benefits and risks. Yet, almost all published research on this topic is from high-income countries. This paper presents new findings across four countries of varying wealth.
We analyse data gathered through the Global Kids Online project from nationally representative samples of Internet-using children aged 9 to 17 years in Bulgaria (n = 1,000), Chile (n = 1,000), Ghana (n = 2,060) and the Philippines (n = 1,873). Data was gathered on Internet usage on week and weekend days. Measures of absolute (comparable across countries) and relative (compared to other children within countries) time use were constructed. Mental health was measured by Cantril's ladder (life satisfaction). The analysis also considers the relative explanatory power on variations in mental health of children's relationships with family and friends. Analysis controlled for age, gender and family socioeconomic status.
In Bulgaria and Chile, higher-frequency Internet use is weakly associated with lower life satisfaction. In Ghana and the Philippines, no such pattern was observed. There was no evidence that the relationship between frequency of Internet use and life satisfaction differed by gender. In all four countries, the quality of children's close relationships showed a much stronger relationship with their life satisfaction than did time spent on the Internet.
Time spent on the Internet does not appear to be strongly linked to children's life satisfaction, and results from one country should not be assumed to transfer to another. Improving the quality of children's close relationships offers a more fruitful area for intervention than restricting their time online. Future research could consider a wider range of countries and links between the nature, rather than quantity, of Internet usage and mental health.
关于儿童上网时间长短是否会影响其心理健康，证据不一。可能既有好处也有风险。然而，几乎所有关于这个主题的已发表研究都来自高收入国家。本文呈现了来自四个不同财富水平国家的新发现。
我们分析了通过全球儿童在线项目从保加利亚（n=1000）、智利（n=1000）、加纳（n=2060）和菲律宾（n=1873）四个国家具有代表性的互联网使用儿童（9-17 岁）样本中收集的数据。数据收集了在工作日和周末上网的情况。构建了绝对（在国家之间具有可比性）和相对（与国家内的其他儿童相比）时间使用的衡量标准。心理健康通过 Cantril 的阶梯（生活满意度）来衡量。分析还考虑了儿童与家人和朋友的关系对心理健康变化的相对解释力。分析控制了年龄、性别和家庭社会经济地位。
在保加利亚和智利，上网频率越高，生活满意度越低。在加纳和菲律宾，没有观察到这种模式。没有证据表明上网频率与生活满意度之间的关系因性别而异。在所有四个国家，儿童亲密关系的质量与他们的生活满意度之间的关系都要强于上网时间。
上网时间似乎与儿童的生活满意度没有很强的联系，一个国家的结果不应被假定适用于另一个国家。改善儿童亲密关系的质量提供了一个比限制他们上网时间更有成效的干预领域。未来的研究可以考虑更广泛的国家以及互联网使用的性质（而不是数量）与心理健康之间的联系。
