Computer Use among Children: Health and Social Impacts
The impact of computer use on health among children and youth has recently attracted public concern, especially as regards the social impacts involved, such as game addiction, internet use and lack of social interaction, which in turn influence the behavior and personality of children and youths. Dealing with this concern calls for a social network comprising students, parents, teachers, provincial coordinators, etc. to protect children and youths from abuse of computer technology. This study, therefore, developed health surveillance among students, the aim being to promote a learning process and participation among children and adults concerned. Moreover, the children and the adults concerned were given knowledge in and understanding of the impact of computer use on health. Twelve provincial coordinators who are active in civil society were selected for participation in all processes. The other participants were student representatives and their teachers from schools in Bangkok and 12 other schools from 12 provinces all over the country. Volunteers for this study were randomly sampled from each selected school. From total 1,954 student volunteers, 57.3％ were females and 42.7％ were males studying at the intermediate level (grade 7 - 11). It was found that on average, all student volunteers used a computer on 3.4 days per week, for 2.6 hours a day. The share of those who used a computer for 1-2 hours without a break was 36.4％ of all volunteers; it was 27.2％ for more than 2 hours without break. As to the objective of computer use, the answers were: educational purpose; 44.7％, playing games; 30.1％, and chatting on the internet; 17％. During computer use, the most frequent symptoms were burning of the eye (49.1％) and muscular pain (42.1％). Statistical analysis showed that those symptoms were significantly related to the duration of computer use (α=0.05). Brainstorming among all parties and experts resulted in some recommendations such as to raise public awareness on the impacts of computer use on health, to strengthen the involvement of game shops, internet kiosks, student watchdogs and local authority, to observe existing regulations, etc. Since some parents misunderstood that spending most time with computer must be safer than playing outdoors, their children had unavoidably become game or computer addicts. Prevention of computer game addiction means finding other activities that give happiness and success, for instance, sports; music; art or camping. Moreover, it is important to impose discipline and responsibility on children as an important solution that should be started at home.
Children and youth Computer use Health impact
Sasitorn Taptagaporn Suwannee Juthamaneepong Kanikar Buntoengjit
faculty of Public Health, Thammasat University, Patumthani, Thailand National Health Commission Office, Nonthaburi, Thailand
国际会议
17th World Congress on Ergonomics(第十七届国际人类工效学大会)
北京
英文
1-6
2009-08-09（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）