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Bullying Victimization and Disability Status Are Associated with Television Watching in Adolescence

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Abstract

Objectives

Television time has been on the rise for American youth, and health professionals have raised concerns about the negative physical and mental health outcomes associated with extended television time. A clearer understanding of how television watching is related to bullying and disability status is needed.

Method

The present study used data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort, a nationally representative and longitudinal study of American school-aged children from 1998–2006. Multiple linear regression analyses were used to predict television watching of eighth grade students from bullying victimization and disability status. The final analytic sample was 6529 students.

Results

Bullying victimization (B = 0.49, 95% CI = 0.14–0.84) significantly predicted daily television time, after controlling for demographic covariates. This relationship was moderated by disability, in which youth with a disability who were bullied at school watched significantly more television than youth without a disability who were not bullied (B = 1.27, 95% CI = 0.21–2.34). Students reporting lower reading test scores watched more television, as did males and African Americans.

Conclusions

Television watching is significantly higher among students with disabilities who experience bullying. Further research should explore the mechanism by which television watching, bullying victimization, and disability status are related.

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Author Contributions

K.P.K. designed the study, conducted the data analyses, and wrote and edited the manuscript. T.R.K. designed the study and collaborated in writing and editing the final manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work, Kansas State University, 204 Waters Hall, 1603 Old Claflin Place, Manhattan, KS, 66506, USA

    Kristen P. Kremer

  2. Washington University School of Medicine, Esse Health, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Theodore R. Kremer

Authors
  1. Kristen P. Kremer
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  2. Theodore R. Kremer
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Correspondence to Kristen P. Kremer.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

The article makes use of publicly available secondary data that was collected by the National Center for Education Statistics. This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Kremer, K.P., Kremer, T.R. Bullying Victimization and Disability Status Are Associated with Television Watching in Adolescence. J Child Fam Stud 28, 3479–3486 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-019-01530-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-019-01530-5

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