Relationship between Screen Time Usage and Academic Performance among School Going Children from Regis School Runda in Nairobi, Kenya

Screen time usage activities have been linked to several negative health outcomes such as increased violence, low quality of life, poor body self-image, engagement in risky behaviors like drug and alcohol use, and cardio-metabolic diseases. The specific objectives of the study were: to assess the prevalence of screen time usage among school going children; to determine gender differences in screen time usage among school going children; and to establish relationship between screen time usage and academic performance among school going children from Regis School Runda in Nairobi. Descriptive correlational research design was adopted and a total of 117 respondents participated who were sampled via simple random sampling. Of the sample size 68.4% were mothers and 58.1% were aged between 38-47 years. The result of the study indicated that 40.9% of children use their parent’s smartphone or mobile phone, 33.9% use their own smartphone and 13% share with their siblings. On the amount time spent on screen time the findings showed that 73.9% spent less than 10 hours, 24.4% use between 10-19 hours on their devices and 1.7% used more than 20 hours on their devices. The average screen time hour was 7.78 (SD = 4.90). The mean for the screen time usage over the weekdays was 1.04 (SD =0.227) and on weekend 1.01 hours (SD=0.09). On gender difference in relation to smartphone usage the finding showed that there was no statistical gender difference in overall screen time usage t (113) = 1.690, p = 0.09 between boys and girls. On the relationship between screen time usage and academic performance indicated that there was no statistical relationship between screen time and academic performance (r = -0.03, p = 0.73). The study recommends that Regis school should periodically conduct parent and guardian workshops to create awareness on the effects of screen time and academic performance on their children.