Screen time trajectories and academic performance across childhood and early adolescence: The role of socioeconomic status

This study uses large-scale longitudinal data to identify distinct trajectories of TV consumption and computer use across childhood to early adolescence and examine their relationships with academic performance and socioeconomic status (SES). Data were drawn from the UK’s Millenium Cohort Study sweeps at ages 3, 5, 7, and 11 years (total N = 16,260). Using latent profile analysis, we identified six trajectories of computer use and six trajectories of television consumption, across the ages of 5 to 11 years. We then tested their associations with academic performance and SES using multinomial logistic regression and multigroup modeling. We found that children with non-normative trajectories of television consumption had poorer academic performance. We also found that children with very low levels of television/computer use had poorer academic performance, and were more likely to come from lower-SES backgrounds. We conclude that below-average levels of screen time may primarily be an indication of households’ inability to afford multiple television sets or computers, with limited access to resources being shown to contribute to the SES attainment gap. Furthermore, as computer usage becomes more integrated into children’s lives and education, those unable to access or use digital technology are at a relative disadvantage to their peers.