| While the Internet brings many benefits to people’s life such as information search and communication convenience,productivity enhancement,enrichment of living content,its potential risks are also becoming one of the vital topics in the field of development economic research.The improper use of the Internet has particularly concern for teenagers with immature values and relatively weak self-control.This is because the healthy growth of teenagers is related to the quality of the social workforce in the future.Due to the lack of strict management of the public Internet environment in the rural areas,parents’ low level of education and constant migrant employment,rural teenagers’ internet use may be more irrational,resulting in more serious problems.Concerning this,this study intends to systemically research and answer the following questions:Does the time increase of Internet use have a negative impact on the physical health of rural teenagers?How does the time increase of Internet use affect the physical health of rural teenagers by influencing their time allocation,diet and nutrition structure?What are the main reasons that affect the rural teenagers’Internet use behavior,especially the irrational use?Are there impacts and mechanisms have regional or gender differences?Answering these questions will have a profound impact on guiding the rural teenagers in using the Internet rationally,strengthening the management of Internet entertainment venues in rural areas,improving the quality of future rural labor force,and even facilitating the healthy growth of rural teenagers.Based on related theories and models of development economics,this study systematically examines the impact of time increase in Internet use of rural teenagers on their physical health,and reveals its health-affection mechanism by influencing their time allocation,dietary timing and nutritional structure through theoretical and empirical analysis.The study firstly clarifies the impact of time increase in Internet use on the physical health of rural teenagers.Secondly,it identifies the impact of time increase in Internet use on time allocation,dietary timing and nutrition structure of rural teenagers,and examines its degree of adverse effects on them by comparing the sleep time,exercise time,calorie,fat and protein intake with standard measurement to see the deviations.Finally,the study further examines the influence of the rural teenagers’ living environment(family environment and external environment)on the Internet use time and adverse consequences.The study collects data from 1954 rural teenagers in 12 provinces and cities in China Health and Nutrition Examination Survey(CHNS),carries out empirical analysis by applying the Probit model with endogenous variables,three-stage least squares(3SLS),and two-stage least squares(2SLS).The main conclusions of the study include:1.Time increase of Internet use and improper use of the Internet have a significant negative impact on the physical health of rural teenagers,mainly manifested as overweight and obesity.The results of the econometric analysis indicate that time increase of Internet use will up the probability of overweight and obesity of rural teenagers,but there are gender differences.Time increase of Internet use will aggravate the problem of male obesity and female overweight.The negative impact is emerged mainly because that time increase of Internet use and improper use of the Internet can affect rural teenagers’ sleep time,dietary patterns and nutritional structure.2.The impact of time increase of Internet use on the distribution of rural teenagers’time depends on the sum of substitution effect and complementary effect.The relative degrees of the two effects are closely related to the functional diversity of these activities,whose negative impact on sleep,housework and learning time is not conducive to teenagers’health and learning.(1)The functions of activities such as sleeping,learning and housework are single,and time increase of Internet use will obviously crowd out the time of these activities,exerting an adverse effect on rural teenagers’ sleep rest,academic performance and self-care ability.Based on the comparison with the sleep standard,time increase of Internet use will significantly aggravate the lack of sleep among rural teenagers.There is a gender difference in the marginal impact of time increase of Internet use on time allocation.The negative impact on girls’ sleep and learning time is greater than that of boys,while the negative impact of boys on housework time is greater than that of girls.However,girls spend less time on the Internet than boys but more time on study,the Internet has a greater negative impact on boy s’ academic achievement than girls.(2)The use of traditional media such as TV and electronic game machines has multiple functions.The Internet is not a simple alternative to it.The time increase of the Internet use tends to increase girls’ use time of traditional media such as TV,but doesn’t have a significant substitution effect for boys.The Internet and traditional media are alternative and similar in many functions,but there are also differences and complementarities.Therefore,on one hand,the Internet has a simple substitution effect on traditional media.On the other hand,there are differences in contents provided and characteristics.The superposition and reinforcement effects of the two types of information will even increase teenager’s time input in the two types of activities at the same time,and there will be complementary effect.The Internet is mainly a substitute for electronic game consoles,but a complementarity to television.Due to the different preferences of boys and girls for traditional media use,namely girls prefer television and boys prefer video games,time increase of Internet use will increase the TV time for girls while reducing the video game time for boys.3.The time increase of Internet use and improper behavior will significantly affect the rural teenagers’ dietary patterns and nutritional structure,and further influence their health.They will also lead to unbalanced fat intake among rural teenagers,leading to overweight or obesity and other health problems.Because time increase of Internet use and improper degree of Internet use will increase the ratio of non-dinner food consumption of rural teenagers,slash meal time,and reduce dinner time,and eat more high-oil,high-fat food,resulting in a rise in fat intake.After further comparison with the standard of fat intake,it is found that time increase of Internet use will up rise the probability of fat intake exceeding the standard of rural teenagers,in particular,resulting in overweight or obesity among boys.4.Good family environment,parental guidance and standardized management of the external Internet business environment exert positive impacts on rural teenagers’ time and rationalization of Internet use.Families with parental guidance can significantly reduce teenagers’ sleep time and the probability of sleep deprivation,excessive fat and protein intake,compared to families without parental guidance.However,the increase in the number of community Internet cafes and the popularity of community Internet service will significantly raise the Internet use time of teenagers,and even increase the probability of lack of sleep and excessive fat intake.In addition,school can weaken the negative impact of the Internet business environment and community Internet services,and help cultivate rural teenagers’ proper Internet use behavior.Based on the above findings,it can be found that improper use of Internet will have a negative impact on physical health of rural teenagers.Concerning these impacts,the following three suggestions are proposed to ensure the healthy growth of rural teenagers and the quality of rural labor force in the future,and strengthen rural Internet management.Firstly,we should increase public investment,strengthen management,improve rural network environment quality and give full play of Internet’s active role in daily life and build a healthy Internet environment.Secondly,schools should introduce new technologies into interactive teaching and guide rural teenagers in learning on the Internet.Thirdly,families should guide their children in time management and improve their self-management ability and ability to use the Internet rationally. |
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