The effects of electronic media on children’s self/private reading behavior: A case of Morogoro municipality and mvomero district, tanzania.

ABSTRACT

Access and use of electronic media is fast expanding in Developing countries, Tanzania included. The current study was designed with a general objective of determining the effects of electronic media on children’s self/private reading behavior. The study specifically aimed at identifying the common electronic media accessed by children and adolescents; to determine the average number of hours spent by children on electronic media consumption; to assess the influence of electronic media to children private/self reading behaviour; and to determine the perception of parents towards access and use of electronic media by children self/private reading behaviour. The study was conducted in Morogoro municipality and in Mgeta division in Mvomero district. A cross-sectional research design was used, whereby a total of 80 respondents were interviewed, these included school children, parents, guardians, and school teachers. A pre-structured questionnaire was used in collecting the primary data. In addition to this focused group discussions and in-depth interviews with key informants was conducted. Quantitative data were analysed using a Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) program. Generally, descriptive and inferential statistics were determined to enable an understanding of the influence of electronic media on children’s self/private study. Structural and content analysis was used to analyse data from FDGs and the in-depth interviews. Observations from the study show that although there are numerous effects associated with children consumption of electronic media, there were no significant effects between consumption of electronic media and children self/private reading behaviour. Furthermore, the study revealed that the common electronic media accessed by children and adolescents is television and that both children and their parents have a positive perception towards consumption of electronic media. In addition parents/guardians had some control ii measures in place on children consumption of electronic media and there was generally a high awareness level on the importance of self/private reading to children.