Longitudinal impacts of pubertal timing and weight status on adolescent Internet use: Analysis from a cohort study of Taiwanese youths

Meng-Che Tsai; Carol Strong; Wan-Ting Chen; Chih-Ting Lee; Chung-Ying Lin

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0197860

Longitudinal impacts of pubertal timing and weight status on adolescent Internet use: Analysis from a cohort study of Taiwanese youths

PLoS One. 2018 May 24;13(5):e0197860. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0197860. eCollection 2018.

Authors

Meng-Che Tsai¹, Carol Strong², Wan-Ting Chen³, Chih-Ting Lee⁴, Chung-Ying Lin⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pediatrics, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
² Department of Public Health, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
³ Department of Counseling and Guidance, College of Education, National University of Tainan, Tainan, Taiwan.
⁴ Department of Family Medicine, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
⁵ Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong.

Abstract

Aim: To investigate the longitudinal impacts of pubertal timing and weight status on Internet use in adolescents.

Methods: Three waves of data on a longitudinal cohort of 7th grade students (N = 2430) were retrieved from the Taiwan Youth Project. Univariate and multivariate regression models were applied using crude and adjusted odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) to examine the concomitant impacts of pubertal timing and weight status on adolescent Internet use.

Results: The dataset identified 210 (8.7%) students using the Internet for more than 20 hours/week, and 81 (3.3%) were viewing pornographic material online. Early maturing and thin-weight adolescents were at 35% and 46% increased risks of spending long hours on Internet use, respectively. While early puberty was associated with online pornography viewing among males (adjusted OR 1.84, 95% CI 1.04-3.28), early puberty was contrarily a protective factor against online gaming in females (adjusted OR 0.59, 95% CI 0.36-0.96).

Conclusion: Early puberty was found to be positively related to adolescent Internet use. Appropriate health education and guidance regarding Internet use should be provided to those with different developing needs.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Behavior, Addictive / psychology*
Body Mass Index*
Body Weight
Female
Humans
Internet / statistics & numerical data*
Longitudinal Studies
Male
Puberty, Precocious / psychology*
Sexual Maturation*
Social Behavior*
Video Games / psychology*

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the research grant awarded to CT Lee from the National Cheng Kung University Hospital (NCKUH-100503004). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.