Association between Physical Activity, Sedentary Behavior, Satisfaction with Sleep Fatigue Recovery and Smartphone Dependency among Korean Adolescents: An Age- and Gender-Matched Study

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify the association between physical activity (PA), sedentary behavior (SB), satisfaction with sleep fatigue recovery (SSFR), and smartphone dependency in South Korean adults. We analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2020 data. We selected participants who answered Internet addiction-related questions as “Very much” (n = 241) and answered Internet addiction-related questions as “Not at all” (n = 241) in the questionnaire. The participants were matched by age and gender, then divided into two groups. Between the two groups, there were considerable differences in the number of days participating in moderate to vigorous PA (5 days or more, p = 0.01), the number of strength training days (1 day, p = 0.02), the number of light PA days for more than 60 min (every day for the last 7 days, p = 0.01), and the SSFR over the past 7 days (p < 0.05). Additionally, the mean smartphone usage time and mean sedentary behavior time between the two groups showed significant differences. The study demonstrated that there were significant associations between PA, SB, SSFR, and smartphone dependency among Korean adolescents matched by age and gender. Additionally, this study highlights the importance of increasing overall PA and number of days participating in MVPA, decreasing SB time and smartphone usage time could reduce the incidence of smartphone overdependence.

The Longitudinal Mediating Effect of Smartphone Dependency on the Relationship between Exercise Time and Subjective Happiness in Adolescents

“…Additionally, the mediating effect of smartphone dependency, as revealed in our study, highlights the potential to use exercise as a method to reduce this dependency. While numerous studies emphasize the detrimental effects of increasing smartphone dependency on adolescent mental health [13,16,18], emerging research suggests that physical activity may be employed to mitigate this dependency [25,27]. In particular, this aligns with research results indicating that aerobic exercise interventions reduced the desire for mobile phone use among university students with high mobile phone dependency [33] and identifying that exercise negatively predicted smartphone addiction [34].…”

“…For instance, a study identified that the physical activity levels of university students negatively and directly predicted smartphone dependency [25,26]. Another study suggests that as adolescents engage in more moderate-to vigorous-intensity physical activities, their smartphone dependency may decrease [27]. Given the lack of a clear understanding of the relationship between problematic smartphone usage and physical activity, it is necessary to investigate these two variables for the enhancement of adolescent mental health.…”

Correlation of negative emotion, fatigue level and internet addiction in college students: implication for coping strategies

“…People's self-control, like muscles, has an upper limit, when beyond this limit, people's behavior is easy to get out of control [33][34][35]. According to the theory of limited self-control, the loss of self-control will lead to the decline of college students' ability to resist hedonistic experiences, so they are prone to internet addiction [36,37]. The basic explanation of the loss of compensation hypothesis for internet addiction is that internet rational compensation leads to loss of compensation and Internet addiction behavior [38].…”

KIJANI: Designing a Physical Activity Promoting Collaborative Augmented Reality Game

“…According to the WHO's 2020 catalog of PA recommendations, sedentary behavior in children can be associated with various health issues: "increased adiposity; poorer cardiometabolic health, fitness, behavioural conduct/pro-social behaviour; and reduced sleep duration" [4]. Usually, smartphone usage is classified as sedentary behavior [10,11], and children are suggested to limit their screen time. Location-based games that promote outdoor activities (like KIJANI, the game proposed in this research) could change that narrative.…”