Objective: Tablets, computers and mobile phones are an important aspect of modern living, however there is concern that excess recreational use of these devices increases sedentary activity and adversely affects sleep. The aim of this research was to pilot the use of automated wearable cameras to investigate their potential to measure evening screen use in adolescents.
Methods: A convenience sample of adolescents (13-17 years, n=15) wore an automated camera on a lanyard around their neck for three evenings from 5pm to bedtime. The camera (Brinno TLC120) captured an image every 15 seconds. Actual bedtime was determined by actigraphy (Actigraph wGTX-BT) as an indicator of camera wear time compliance. Screen images were coded for the type of device, activity (e.g. watching, texting), and context (multitasking, screen as a background activity and area).
Results: In total, 42,312 images were captured for 40 evenings. Two participants completed only two nights of recording and one participant failed to turn the camera on. Average wear time per evening was 4h 24min (SD 1h 36min) with a mean screen time of 1h 54min (SD 56min) . Compliance to wearing the camera declined over the three evenings (day1: 77%; day 2: 68%, day 3: 52%). One quarter of screen images showed adolescents using two devices simultaneously, mostly phones with watching TV/laptops. Few images were dark or blurry (median <1%) but the camera field of view frequently captured ceilings if the participant was lying or slouching (median 7%). The percent of images with screens ranged from 25% to 79% (median 52%) in individual participants. The most common screens captured were phones (25%), TV (25%) and laptops (17%). For one third of screen images the type of activity was uncodable and most of these were for phones (89%).
Conclusions: In this group of adolescents, more than half of evening time was spent using or watching screens. The automated cameras performed well in low light and have the potential to measure multi-tasking and intermittent screen use not easily captured in self-report. Some limitations in respect to measuring types of activities and wear time compliance were evident in this pilot trial.
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- A square world: Exploring the use of automated wearable cameras to measure screen use in adolescents
- Claire SmithBarbara C GallandWillemijn de BruinRachael W Taylor
- International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA) 2018 Annual Scientific Meeting, 17th (Hong Kong, 03/06/2018–06/06/2018)
- Medicine (DSM); Paediatrics and Child Health (DSM)
- University of Otago Health Sciences Postdoctoral Fellowship
- Copyright © The Author(s) 2018. This is an open access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly attributed to the creator(s) and the source, is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way, and a link to the Creative Commons license is provided.
- 06/2018
- English
- Conference poster
- application/pdf