Objective: To get a better knowledge of the current situation of screen time among primary and secondary school students in all provinces of China from 2016 to 2017.
Methods: Data was from the China National Nutrition and Health Surveillance of Children and Lactating Women(2016-2017).275 monitoring points were selected from 31 provinces of China by multi-stage stratified cluster random sampling. A total of 280 primary and secondary school students from 2 primary schools, 2 junior middle schools and 1 senior high school were randomly selected from each monitoring point to complete the survey.73629 primary and secondary school students(except grade 9 and grade 12) were included in this study.
Results: From 2016 to 2017, the average daily screen time of Chinese primary and secondary school students was(1.65±1.54) hours, M(P25, P75) was 1.29(0.58, 2.21) h. In terms of provinces, the average daily electronic screen time of primary and secondary school students in Beijing, Tianjin, Jilin, Fujian, Guangdong and Hainan is more than 2 hours. In terms of rural and urban areas, the screen time of students in Beijing's rural and urban areas, Tianjin's rural areas, Hebei's urban areas, Liaoning's rural areas, Jilin's rural areas, Fujian's urban areas, Guangdong's urban areas, Guangxi's urban areas, Hainan's rural and urban areas, and Xinjiang's urban areas all exceeds 2 hours/day. Besides, screen times of rural primary and secondary school students in Beijing(Z=2.62, P<0.01), Tianjin(Z=5.94, P<0.01), Liaoning(Z=11.56, P<0.01), Jilin(Z=-7.59, P<0.01), Shanghai(Z=3.19, P<0.01), Jiangsu(Z=12.00, P<0.01), Zhejiang(Z=-4.80, P<0.01), Anhui(Z=-4.67, P<0.01), Jiangxi(Z=-3.29, P=0.01), and Sichuan(Z=-4.53, P<0.01) are longer than that of urban students.
Conclusion: There are urban-rural differences in the average daily electronic screen time and different types of electronic screen time of primary and secondary school students in China's provinces from 2016 to 2017.
Keywords: children and adolescents; electronic screen; primary and middle school students.