Weekend television viewing and video gaming are associated with less adolescent smoking

Abstract

Using the adolescent sample of 2005 California Health Interview Survey (n = 4029), we explored the association between adolescent smoking and daily screen time. We used four predictors of screen time to predict smoking initiation experience and one's current status of being a regular smoker: number of hours spent on viewing TV and playing video games per weekday, number of hours spent on recreational computer use per weekday, number of hours spent on viewing TV and playing video games per weekend day and number of hours spent on recreational computer use per weekend day. We included covariates of demographics and family environment. The results showed that the number of hours spent on viewing TV and video gaming per weekday was positively associated with having ever smoked cigarettes and the current status of being a regular smoker. The number of hours spent on viewing TV and video gaming per weekend day was negatively associated with having ever smoked and the current status of being a regular smoker. Neither weekend time spent on recreational computer use nor weekday time spent on recreational computer use was associated with smoking behaviour in either of the two models.