Peculiarities of prenosological changes in mental and physical health of students from Generation Z

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UDC: 
613.86: 613.95/96
DOI: 
10.21668/health.risk/2019.4.17.eng
Authors: 

A.G. Setko, E.V. Bulycheva, N.P. Setko

Organization: 

The Orenburg State Medical University, 6 Sovetskaya Str., Orenburg, 460000, Russian Federation

Abstract: 

Rapid digital technologies development, easily available Internet networks, and electronic gadgets being widely spread and extremely popular have resulted in creation of a new “digital environment”; this environment, within the theory of generations, has become a key factor in forming a new generation, so called Generation Z. At present children pursue a lifestyle that differs significantly from those of previous generations and is characterized with low physical activity, short amount of time spent outdoors, and great educational loads. All this, together with impacts exerted by new hygienic factors, for example, information and communication technologies being actively and profoundly used by modern children, causes risks for mental and physical health. We assessed mental and physical health of 80 children belonging to Generation Z (so called “indigo children”). They were all born in 2008 and were 10 years old at the moment of the examination that took place on April 05, 2018. We revealed that Generation Z children had certain psychological and personal traits. Here we should mention 3.5 times greater number of children with social-psychological deadaptation in the communicative and behavioral sphere; 2.4 times greater number of children with greater anxiety and 2.5 times lower sociometric status against the previous generation. We detected a decrease in physiometric parameters of physical development such as 14.7 % lower vital capacity of lungs and 22.3 % lower response hand grip strength; these negative trends were accompanied with overweight being more widely spread among Generation Z against the previous one. Children with normal body weight were 1.3 times less frequently detected among Generation Z, but 2.1 times more children had overweight than among children of the same age who were examined 10 years ago.

Keywords: 
digital environment, Generation Z, “indigo children”, Generation Y, “millennials”, a psychological profile of a contemporary generation, social and psychological adaptation, anxiety, communicative efficiency, physiometric and somatometric parameters
Setko A.G., Bulycheva E.V., Setko N.P. Peculiarities of prenosological changes in mental and physical health of students from generation Z. Health Risk Analysis, 2019, no. 4, pp. 158–164. DOI: 10.21668/health.risk/2019.4.17.eng
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Received: 
19.03.2019
Accepted: 
27.11.2019
Published: 
30.12.2019

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