Title

Digital addiction and its relationship with cognitive function among children - A cross sectional study

Authors

Karthika Devi Mariappan^1,*, Sasikala Palayan¹, C Zealous Mary² & Joseph Jeganathan³

Affiliation

¹Department of Faculty of Nursing, Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research, Porur, Chennai, India; ²Department of Paediatric Nursing, Indira College of Nursing, Thiruvallur, India; ³Department of Nursing, College of Health and Sport Sciences, University of Bahrain, Kingdom of Bahrain; *Corresponding author

Email

Karthika Devi Mariappan - E - mail: mkarthikadevi02@gmail.com; karthika@sriramachandra.edu.in

Sasikala Palayan - E - mail: sasikalajose@gmail.com; sasikalajose@sriramachandra.edu.in
C Zealous Mary - E - mail: zealmary@gmail.com; dean.icon@indiraeducational.org
Joseph Jeganathan - E - mail: josephjeganathan28@gmail.com; jjeganathan@uob.edu.bh

Article Type

Research Article

Date

Received May 1, 2025; Revised May 31, 2025; Accepted May 31, 2025, Published May 31, 2025

Abstract

Modern children exhibit a significantly greater reliance on technology compared to earlier generation. Therefore, it is of interest to evaluate the digital addiction and its effect on cognitive function among children. A Cross sectional study using convenience sampling technique was used to collect data from 419 children aged 9-17 years from pediatric ward and Out Patient Department (OPD) in a tertiary care hospital. The analysis included 419 participants and examined the relationship between digital addiction, measured by the Digital Addiction scale for children (DASC), and cognitive function measured by the PedsQL Cognitive function scale. The mean DASC score was 61.41 ± 18.51, and the mean PedsQL score was 388.49 ± 138.17. A statistically significant negative correlation was found between DASC and PedsQL scores (r = -0.57, p < 0.001), indicating Digital addiction has negative impact on cognitive function of children. This suggests that as digital addiction increases, cognitive function tends to decrease.

Keywords

Digital media; internet use; digital addiction; cognitive function; children

Citation

Mariappan et al. Bioinformation 21(5): 1025-1028 (2025)

Edited by

P Kangueane

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.