Assessment of the relationship between the use of digital devices and the transformation of the daily routine of schoolchildren

Active use of digital technologies in the educational process and daily life leads to changes in children’s behavioral stereotypes, that creates an additional burden on the child’s developing body. There is a need for in-depth research on the impact of digital technologies on children’s development. Objective. To assess the duration of digital devices’ use by school students and its relationship with the daily regimen. Materials and methods. Interviewing of 249 148 students and their parents (legal representatives) using a computer-assisted system of collection and analysis of interview results was carried out within the framework of implementation of the «Demography» national project in 2023—2024 school year in 85 constituent entities of the Russian Federation. Statistical processing was performed with the application of Statistica-10.0 and Microsoft Excel programs, using descriptive statistics methods. Differences were considered statistically significant at p<0.05. Results. The use of electronic means in the educational process and leisure activities of school students increases the duration of their contact with digital devices, which is more than 3 hours per day on weekends in 11.5% of children when watching TV, in 13.3% — when working at the computer (laptop, tablet), in 13.8% — when using smartphones. The largest number of adolescents with high duration of daily contact with gadgets has been observed among high school students: more than 30.0% of them use these devices in school days and more than 40.0% — on weekends. At the same time, more than 50% of high school students use smartphones over 3 hours per day for communication. This is one of the factors of reduction in sleep duration (45.9% of high school students sleep less than 8 hours in school days) and decrease in motor activity (30.6% of respondents). Conclusion. The study has shown that screen time when using digital devices is more than 3 hours per day in a significant number of students of general education organizations. The number of such learners is higher among high school students, both on school days and weekends, that leads to reduced motor activity, insufficient sleep duration and is a risk factor for the school students’ health. The study results serve as a basis for improving prevention measures.