الفهرس 
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Abstract
Current school children, often categorized as the “Internet
Generation,” They are the first to experience a world full of information
and communication technology. Mobile devices were quickly became the
preferred media choice for children because of their screen size, mobility,
ability to stream content, interactive capability, and decreasing costs.
Parents and children are around technology all day with work,
school, and home devices. Due to rapid changes in technology, parents
often fall behind their children in knowledge related to the Internet.
The aim of the study was to better understand how parents had
perceived the mobile and Internet effects on their children’s health.
The study was a cross sectional study conducted in the context of
time frame of 14 months (starting from first of January 2017 to the end of
February 2018) in Meet habib village , Samnoud city, in ELgharbyia Government.
The study was approved by the ethical committee of the Faculty of
Medicine, Menoufia University. Informed consent was taken from each
participant after simple and clear explanation of the purpose of the study
to each one.
Nearly 3000 primary school children are present in this village
disturbed on 4 main schools. Cluster sampling was done and one school
was chosen by simple random sample for the study where total number of
studied students was 1000(from 6-12 years old). The questionnaire was
given to the students’ parents to answer it registering their answers in the
questionnaire form.
The questionnaire was used to collect the necessary data which
included the following parts :
1) Socioeconomic status of participants.
2) Participants children data.
3) Participants children internet usage data .
4) Parents opinion towards the positive effects of means on
children.
5) Parents opinion towards the negative effects of means on children.
from this study it was found that:
A total of 1000 parents answered the questionnaire. Age group was
children from (6-12 years ).Nearly two thirds of children’s families (64%)
had moderate socioeconomic status. Only(13.2 % )of children had
a private mobile device and most of children (82.2 % ) had other modern
means . Tablets were the most common used by children (55.5 % ).
Children used mobile at younger age started at the age of
(4years).Children’s attachment to means was variable , (52.1% ) were
mild attached and (32% ) were very attached to modern means. About (
34 % ) of children spent 1-2 hours per day and (10.7% ) of children spent
more than 5 hours using modern means .Games were most common used
by children (23.9% ) and only (9.1%) of children always used means as
an educational tool .
Most of parents (47.6%) allowed their children use of internet at
young age with restrictions, mobile was most common used by
children(43.1%) to access to the internet and (84.2%) of children
accessed the internet at home. Most of children (56.9%) used internet
daily for 1 hour at school duration of internet usage was increased in
vacation days .Cartoon sites were most used by children (40.3%) and
only (18.6%) of children used internet as educational tool.
About(21.7%) of children used internet for socialization. Most of
parents (64.4%) thought they controlled children use of internet ,(35.3%)
of parents thought their children ability to use internet exceeded their
ability and most of parents (66.1%) supported presence of specific
browser for children when use internet .
As regard positive effects of internet were : (85.4%) activated child
mind, (85.7%) improved children’s skills, (78.4%) increased children’s
courage, (67.4%) improved educational level, (74.1%) increased
children’s intelligence, (78.6%) increased children’s data and (83.7%)
increased children’s imagination.
Negative effects of modern means were classified into
Psychosocial and physical effects .
Negative psychosocial effects were ,wasted time(80.4%) , reduced
children’s imagination(16.4%) , showed contents didn’t match with child
age(69.1%) , affected children’s behavior (76.5%), made children
violent(42.2%) , interfered with skills and hobbies(58%) , made children
isolated(19.8%) , decreased children’s interaction with
surroundings(63.7%) ,affected children’s concentration (59.6%) and
decreased children’s academic achievement(48.8%),(43.4%) of parents
thought that negative effects more than positive effects, children became
addict internet(27.3%) and (49.1%) of parents worried about their
children use of internet.
Physical effects were, reduced children’s activity(70.3%) , affected
children’s health( 52.2%), affected children’s eating(54.6%) , caused
children obesity(7.6%), decreased eating (47.9%) , affected children’s
eyes(74.4%)and caused children’s headache (56.7%) .
Means affected children’s ears and hearing(33.4%), caused low
back pain(31%) , caused tingling of extremities(23.7%) , affected
children’s sexual behavior (15.7%) and affected children’s sleep(15.7%) .
Parents face challenges in monitoring their children’s and their
own media use and in serving as positive role models. Teachers can play
a key role in teaching media literacy to their students. As technology
rapidly enters the classroom, educators may guide students to engage in
appropriate, positive, and safe ways to utilize these helpful digital
resources. Family physician should recommend parents to limit the
amount of total entertainment screen time to less than1 to 2 hours per day,
discourage screen media exposure for children less than2 years of age.
Study limitations were non-compliance, misunderstanding of how to fill the questionnaire form, delayed in submitting questionnaires, forgot
questionnaire by students and light thought about the importance of the
study but all these difficulties were overcame by using proper
communication skills.
The strengths of this study were large sample size (1000 students’
parents) and homogeneous population.