School performance in early childhood is an important factor which lays foundation for future academic excellence and professional development. In recent times, important factors implied in poor school performance in children are increasing screen time and decrease sleep duration. In addition to poor school performance, both these factors have been associated with several physical, psychological and social adverse effects [1].

Increasing screen time and insufficient sleep are common among youth and adolescents around the world. Excessive screen hours have been found to be associated with various health problems in children such as impaired concentration, headache, fatigue, stress, sleep disturbances and frustration. Previous studies documented that frequent screen time is related to poorer academic performance. Similarly, the essence of sleep is to keep life in balance, ensuring that energy used during day time will also be replenished by resting at night. However, when sleep is interrupted and unable to achieve a blissful rest, it may compromise the health and unfolding tasks that teenagers need to accomplish. Evidences show that inadequate sleep in childhood leading to attention disturbance, poor decision-making and decreased memory, which may contribute to a poorer academic success [2-4].

Although numerous survey studies have reported connections between sleep, screen hours and academic performance, there remains a lack of quantitative data using objective measures to directly assess the association between sleep, screen hours and academic performance. Also such studies are limited in school children. Thus the present study was done to evaluate the Correlation of Screen hours and Sleep pattern with academic performance among school going children residing in New Delhi.

Objectives of the Study

To evaluate the Correlation of Screen hours and Sleep pattern with academic performance among school going children residing in New Delhi.

• Research Approach: Descriptive

• Research Design:- Cross-sectional survey design

• Study Area: New Delhi 

• Study Duration: Between January to March 2022

• Study Population: Children aged between 5 to 18 years studying either in government and private schools

• Sample Size: Assuming that 50% school children had adequate knowledge regarding screen hours and sleep duration, 5% absolute error, 95% confidence level and 5% non-response rate, our minimum sample size came out to be 400.

• Inclusive Criteria: Students who were willing to participate in the study.

• Exclusion Criteria: Students who were not willing to participate in the study

• Study Tool: A Pretest semi structured questionnaire containing questions regarding socio-demography screen hours, sleeping durations, sleeping habits, academic performance was created and utilized in the study after pilot testing. 

• Validity of Tool: By the experts in this field

Data Collection

Data was collected and recorded by the school teachers. 

Data Analysis

Data was collected and entered in Microsoft excel spread sheet, cleaned for errors and analyzed with Epi Info V7 Software with appropriate statistical test in terms of frequencies, percentage, mean standard deviation etc. To predict the relationship between the screen hours, sleeping duration and academic performance, a univariate analysis was done. At a p-value of 0.05 was taken as statistically significant.

Present study was developed to evaluate the Correlation of Screen hours and Sleep pattern with academic performance among school going children residing in New Delhi. A total of 400 respondents including 180 (45%) females and 220 (55%) males’ school children from New Delhi were participated in the study. Among them 243(60.8%) were ≤10 Years while 157(39.2%) were >10 years old (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Age and Gender Distribution of Study Participants

Among the total 317(79.3%) school children had screen hours <2 hours per day while 83(20.7%) had ≥2 hours per day. 355(88.8%) school children watched TV <2 hours per day while 45(11.2%) watched ≥2 hours per day. About 349(87.3%) school children using smart phone <2 hours per day while 51(12.7%) using ≥2 hours per day. 344(86.0%) school children had habit of internet surfing <2 hours per day while 56(14.0%) had ≥2 hours per day, 363(90.7%) school children play videogames/games on mobile <2 hours per day while 37(11.2%) play ≥2 hours per day, 198(49.5%) school children had adequate sleep hours of 6-8 hours, 174(43.5%) had sleep hours of more than 8 hours and 28(7%) had sleep duration of less than 6 hours. 364(91%) school children had onset of sleep within 30 minutes after going to bed while 36(9%) had after 30 min or more than that. 251(62.7%) school children didn’t have habit of watching Mobile/TV before sleeping while 149(37.3%) had this habit (Table 1).

Table 1: Pattern of Screen hours and Sleeping Habits among Study Participants

In the present study, 145(36.3%) students had academic performance score 5 as assessed by teacher, 150 (37.5%) had 4, 79(19.8%) had 3, 18(4.5%) had 2 and 8(2%) had academic performance score of 1. The mean academic performance score was 4.02±0.960 as assessed by teacher (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Teacher's Assessment of Student's Academic Performance

In the present study, academic performance score was significantly more in students who had Duration of watching screen per day was <2 hours, Duration of watching TV on a typical day <2 hours Duration of using smartphone on a typical day <2 hours, , Average duration of sleep per day on a weekday between 6-8 hours and who didn’t had Habit of watching Mobile/TV before sleeping while there was no significant difference between the students on the basis of Duration internet surfing, Duration of videogames/games on screen per day and duration of Onset of sleep after going to bed.

The relationship between screen hours and sleep duration with academic performance has been a topic of interest for over a century. Well-controlled sleep studies conducted with healthy adults have shown that better sleep and less screen hours is associated with a myriad of superior cognitive functions, including better learning and memory and better academic performance [5,6].

Several psychological and biological mechanisms have been proposed to explain the sleep disturbances associated with screen time, especially late‑night use. With the ubiquitous presence of media items in an adolescent's bedroom, screen time is hypothesized to be a cause of insufficient and low quality sleep, operating through several mechanisms: The first is time displacement -- with more time in spent front of screens, youth have less time available to sleep. Second, psychological and physical arousal due to the content of the media and social interaction may also interfere with the ability to fall and stay asleep. And finally, there is the effect of light on both circadian rhythm and alertness. The effect on circadian rhythm is mediated through physiological suppression of the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin through the bright light from screens and in the bedroom. These sleep disturbances in turn have been associated with physical health problems and poor psychosocial functioning including impaired academic performance [5-8].

In the present study, academic performance score was significantly more in students who had Duration of watching screen per day was <2 hours, Duration of watching TV on a typical day <2 hours Duration of using smartphone on a typical day <2 hours, Average duration of sleep per day on a weekday between 6-8 hours and who didn’t had Habit of watching Mobile/TV before sleeping while there was no significant difference between the students on the basis of Duration internet surfing, Duration of videogames/games on screen per day <2 hours and duration of Onset of sleep after going to bed (Table 2).

Table 2: Association of Screen Hours and Sleeping Pattern with Academic Performance

Previous systematic reviews in children and adolescents have focused on the association of television viewing and video game playing with academic performance, showing a negative association. More than 2 hours per day of television viewing has been associated with lower academic performance in children and adolescents [9,10]. Most studies looking at the effects of sleep quality and duration on academic performance have linked longer and better-quality sleep with better academic performance such as school grades and study effort [11-13].

Opposite to our study findings, in the study by Kumar et al. [1], there was no statistically significant correlation of screen time duration with composite academic performance and in the study by Keanu et al. [14], there was no correlation between sleep and academic performance.

The overview of literature showed that adolescents with advancing grades tend to go to bed later due to increase use of smartphone, TV and woke up early in the morning which lead to inadequate sleep and decreased academic performance further. Hence poor academic grades depicted that inadequate sleep and increase screen hours can be the reason behind poor academic performance of a child. These results concords with the findings of the previous studies [6-15].

The present study concluded that academic performance of the school children was significantly associated with duration of screen hours and average duration of sleep per day. The study recommends actions at family, school, community, government and policy level to reduce screen time exposure, especially before bedtime hours to minimize any harmful effects of screen time on sleep and well-being and improve academic performance of school children.

Ethical Consideration

Participant’s confidentiality and anonymity was maintained.

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