Media Use and School Performance

Abstract

Adolescent media use and school performance have received much attention in recent years. However, there are no generally accepted findings of the media use affecting school performance. One hypothesis about the two is media use can reduce the performance and the other claims media use can stimulate the performance. Based on the two hypotheses, this paper investigates adolescent’s media use time and school performance, and then explore the two relations. On the other hand, personality traits and family environment are important factors to the adolescent, so those factors are also explored. Nine hundred and fourteen 7th-, 8th- and 9th-grade students from three schools participated in this study. Based on the hierarchical multiple regressions, the findings showed adolescents who spend more time in media use did more poorly in school performances. Learning anxiety and family income are the important affecting factors in the adolescent’s performance. This study implies the reduction hypothesis is more right and media content is one important factor to the adolescent’s achievement.