Effects of practical hobbies on children’s device usage and media addiction in Korea

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study was to explore the effects of children’s environments on their device usage, specifically whether engagement in practical hobbies (musical instruments, sports) or the presence of pets in their surroundings would play significant part in children’s PC and smart phone usage and media addition in general. The study data were taken from the Panel Study on Korean Children for the 11th year, and the specific subjects were 1,434 fourth-grade children (male 730, female 704). The study results are as follows. First, the extent of playing games on devices showed a positive correlation with media addiction, and moderator variables (presence of pets, playing musical instruments, and sports) had a negative correlation with media addiction. Second, playing a musical instrument significantly moderated the relationship between device usage for games and media addiction.

KEYWORDS:

• Media addiction
• practical hobbies (musical instruments, sports)
• children’s device usage

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.