Sousa Tavares Hunayara Lorena, Souza Costa Daniellede, Soares Antônio Alvim, Kestelman Iane, da Silva Antônio Geraldo, Malloy-Diniz Leandro Fernandes, de Paula Jonas Jardim, de Miranda Débora Marques
Department of Pediatrics, 28114Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
Clin Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2023 Jan;28(1):212-223. doi: 10.1177/13591045221125329. Epub 2022 Sep 3.
Children and adolescents were largely affected by the psychosocial impact of the 2019-2022 pandemic. During this time, there was an increase in internalizing symptoms, screen and internet use, and internet addiction. However, the interaction of these variables are not fully understood in a stressful time. Here, we have a repeated cross-sectional study aiming to model internalizing symptoms' prediction depending on screen time and game addiction during the COVID-19 pandemic. Parent-reported online data were collected at three timepoints, 6 months apart from each other, from a total of 1211 participants. We found an increase in screen time, game addiction, and internalizing symptoms. Regardless of the time spent in front of screens, higher levels of game addiction were associated with higher levels of internalizing symptoms in children and adolescents. Even if participants demonstrated low screen time, if they were virtually dependent they tended to exhibit higher levels of internalizing symptoms. The same result was found in all three samples. There is a need to investigate the nature of the relationship between internet addiction and internalizing symptoms and the long lasting effects of long hours on the screen.
儿童和青少年在很大程度上受到了2019年至2022年疫情的心理社会影响。在此期间，内化症状、屏幕和互联网使用以及网络成瘾有所增加。然而，在压力时期，这些变量之间的相互作用尚未完全明了。在此，我们进行了一项重复横断面研究，旨在建立在新冠疫情期间根据屏幕使用时间和游戏成瘾来预测内化症状的模型。从总共1211名参与者那里，在三个时间点收集了家长报告的在线数据，时间点彼此相隔6个月。我们发现屏幕使用时间、游戏成瘾和内化症状都有所增加。无论在屏幕前花费的时间多少，较高水平的游戏成瘾与儿童和青少年较高水平的内化症状相关。即使参与者的屏幕使用时间较短，但如果他们有虚拟依赖，他们往往会表现出较高水平的内化症状。在所有三个样本中都发现了相同的结果。有必要调查网络成瘾与内化症状之间关系的本质以及长时间使用屏幕的长期影响。
