Digital Childhood: the Impact of Using Digital Technology on Children’s Health

ABSTRACT

Background and Objective: Digital media can be considered as an important element of life for today's children and adolescents since theyspend a lot of time using it. This increased use of digital media is associated with poor behavior and health status. Society in general andpractitioners in public health in particular should promote digital media use strategies through health education. This study is aimed atevaluating the impact of using digital technology on children physical, social and behavior health. Methodology: This is a descriptive studywhich was conducted at the primary health care centers of Tabuk. Through purposive sampling, 300 people were included in the study. Aquestionnaire and a checklist were used as the tools for data collection. Results: There was a significant relationship between theattachment to technology and both physical and psychological health of the studied children. There was also a significant differencebetween the awareness of mothers regarding both negative and positive effects of technology and total effects of technology at the pre andpost-intervention stages. Conclusion: Using technology had an impact on both physical and psychological health of children, and there wasan improvement in mothers’ awareness in this regard. This reflects the key role of health education on improving the awareness of mothersabout the effects of using technology on the health of their children.