According to the findings of a study presented today at the 48th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention, hosted by the American Heart Association, many teenagers invest as much time watching television and viewing other screen-related programming each week as is required of a full-time job. Viewing habits vary, of course, and a considerable degree of variation is found in gender and socio-economic status.

Screen-related programming includes computer and internet time and video games, as well as watching TV programs and movies. Boys seem more drawn to the screen than girls, as do children of either gender who have parents with limited education or income. The five-year-long study revealed little change in screen-time habits during a child’s high school years.

Most teenagers in general (60%) spend about 20 hours a week in front of a television or computer screen. About a third of them invest 40 hours, while 7% report 50 hours or more of screen time on a weekly basis. The risk of obesity is linked to excessive time spent in sedentary activities such as watching television and other screen-related activities.

Fifty-two percent of the boys and 26% of the girls say they spend more than 42 hours of screen-time each week. This level of viewing includes both television and video viewing as well as computer and internet use.

When limiting screen time to just TV and videos, 52% of the boys and 39% of the girls report 23 hours or more of weekly viewing.

For just computer and internet use, 24% of the boys and 7% of the girls report about 30 hours of usage.

When dividing viewing habits into a high and low category, even the low-level viewing adds up to 18 to 22 hours of weekly screen time.

On a socioeconomic scale, teens living in poorer neighborhoods reported two to three times more TV and video screen time than their more affluent counterparts. Girls in low-income neighborhoods spend five times more time in front of a screen than girls in other neighborhoods.

The study, funded by the National Cancer Institute of Canada and the Canadian Cancer Society, was conducted in Montreal. It involved 1,293 students in the seventh grade who completed questionnaires in class four times each year over a five-year period. Census demographics such as parental education and income levels were factored in to the study analysis.

Source: American Heart Association