Vol. 11, Special Issue 9 (2022)

Author(s):
Devkate SS and Bangale JR

Abstract:
One hundred and fifty rural school going children (76 female and 74 Male) in the age range of 9 – 12 yrs were chosen at random from 5 villages of Parbhani District (MS) for studying screen based leisure time activities of rural school going children and their opinions about them. The data related to the study were collected by personally interviewing of rural children based on structured and open ended interview schedule. It is obvious from the results that higher percentage of rural girls (68.42%) observed to be watching cartoon serials telecasted on TV for recreation purpose like Chhota Bheem, Motu Patlu, Bablu Dablu, Teletubbies etc. followed by watching comedy programmes (53.94%) viz Funny videos, Dramebaaz episodes, Comedy circus ka jadoo, Zee comedy show, family oriented serials (50.00%). However in case of rural boys, it was observed that generally they used to watch Comedy videos, Hindi and Marathi movie songs, Hindi Movies, Cartoon serials etc. As compared to sample rural girls, boys were recorded to be involved more in utilizing cell-phones/ smart-phones to carry out enlisted activities for recreational purpose. All the sample rural school going children opined that they experienced sense of joy, improved communication skills (79.33%), enhanced general knowledge (68.66%) learnt etiquettes and manners and also developed socio- emotional skills (66.66% each) due to getting involved in various screen based leisure time activities. Excessive usage of cell-phones/ smart-phones is proved to be hazardous for children.