International article
Computer usage and its relationship with adolescent lifestyle in Hong Kong

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Abstract

Purpose: To determine the patterns of computer usage among adolescents in Hong Kong and to examine whether computer usage is associated with less physical activity and social support among adolescents.

Methods: A total of 2110 secondary school students (52% boys and 48% girls) in Hong Kong completed a set of questionnaires to measure their computer usage and lifestyle. Mean age of the respondents was 14.16 years (SD = 1.81 years). Computer usage was taped by asking the students to indicate how much time (in minutes) they spent on the computer each day for doing homework assignments; playing computer games; “surfing” the Internet; and communicating with others. The students also provided information on their social-physical lifestyle. Student’s t-tests and analysis of variance were used to examine group differences. Pearson product moment correlations were used to explore relationships between computer usage and lifestyle.

Results: Boys who use computers for doing homework, “surfing” the Internet, and communicating with others engage in more social-physical activities than others. Boys who use computers to play games tend to be more social-behaviorally inactive. For girls, patterns of computer usage are not related to lifestyle.

Conclusions: Computer users tended to engage in social-physical activities more frequently and had higher social support than nonusers. But among computer users, the amount of time spent daily on the computer was not associated with lifestyle. Instead, patterns of computer usage are more related to lifestyle and the relationship is moderated by gender.

Section snippets

Participants

The Hong Kong education system provides 7 years of high school education from Form 1 to Form 7. This study collected data on students studying in Form 1, Form 3, and Form 5 among 6 high schools in Hong Kong. Students in this study were comparable to those studying in Grade 7, Grade 9, and Grade 11 in the U.S. system. The six high schools were selected by convenient sampling to represent different levels of academic achievement of students in Hong Kong. All 2627 students studying in Form 1, Form

By gender

Figure 1 shows the percentage of computer users by domains of use and gender. Chi-square analyses were used to examine gender differences in prevalence of computer usage among our students. Overall, 82% of the students reported that they had used computers on at least one of the four domains under investigation. There are more male than female computer users (X2(1) = 14.62, p < .001). More female students tended to use computers for doing homework and for communicating with others than their

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the principals, staff, and students of Confucius Hall Middle School, King’s College, Lok Sin Tong Leung K.K. Middle School, St. Paul’s Convent School, Wah Yan College, and Ying Wa Girls’ School for their support and assistance to this project.

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