Smartphone Addiction Levels in School-Age Children After the Covid-19 Pandemic in Rural Area

Abstract

The level of dependence of children on smartphones increased during the Covid-19 pandemic to 47.5%. The average smartphone use time for school-age children is 6.85 hours a day. Meanwhile, the ideal screen time for school-age children is no more than 2 hours/day. Smartphone addiction is a growing problem in children with adverse physical, psychological, and social health conse-quences. The purpose of the study was to see the levels of smartphone addiction in school-age children after the Covid-19 pandemic in rural area of Indonesia. This study used a cross-sectional descriptive design. The research subjects were school-aged children at "X" Elementary School (N=114), total sampling. Data collection was carried out using the Indonesian version of the Smartphone Addiction Scale (SAS) instrument which is valid and reliable. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The smartphone addiction levels were 13.2% for low addiction, 77.2% for moderate addiction, and 9.6% for severe addiction. Item 4 SAS, which contains a statement of feeling happy when using a smartphone gets the highest score. The positive anticipation dimension is the most dominant with the highest score. The level of smartphone addiction after the Covid-19 pandemic among school-age children in this study was dominated by moderate smartphone addiction. The role of parents, teachers, health workers, and the government is an important key to reducing smartphone addiction incidents in school-age children in the future.