Discussion Paper Series Social Media Use and Children’s Wellbeing

TABLE 1: Summary statistics – dependent variables, key explanatory variable and instruments
MEAN ST. DEV. MIN MAX
DEPENDENT VARIABLES, Level of Happiness with:
School work 5.4689 1.181 1 7
Appearance 5.1796 1.413 1 7
Family 6.3528 0.995 1 7
Friends 6.3337 0.936 1 7
School 5.6196 1.418 1 7
Life 5.8934 1.088 1 7
EXPLANATORY VARIABLES, X
NETCHAT (time spent chatting on social media per school day) # 2.4182 0.887 1 5
Child Aged 10 0.0738 0.262 0 1
11 0.1294 0.336 0 1
12 0.1703 0.376 0 1
13 0.2094 0.407 0 1
14 0.2188 0.413 0 1
Child Male 0.4717 0.499 0 1
Child White 0.8217 0.383 0 1
No. close friends 5.7378 3.307 0 15
Time spent watching TV (on normal school day) # 2.9754 0.705 1 5
Parent employed 0.8388 0.368 0 1
Parent has degree 0.3200 0.467 0 1
Single parent household 0.2558 0.436 0 1
Real equivalised net household income (log per month) 6.3154 0.519 0 8.78
No. of other children in household aged 0-2 0.0780 0.295 0 3
3-4 0.0847 0.292 0 2
5-11 0.5359 0.726 0 6
12-15 0.5765 0.694 0 5
Home owners 0.6777 0.467 0 1
Eve. meal with family (No. in last 7 days) # 3.1260 0.965 1 4
Want to go to university 0.6999 0.458 0 1
Ever played truant 0.0886 0.284 0 1
Ever smoked 0.0968 0.296 0 1
Stayed out after 9pm (in last month) 0.1629 0.369 0 1
Urban area 0.2450 0.430 0 1
Local unemployment rate (log) 2.0235 0.387 0.47 3.11
INSTRUMENTAL VARIABLES, Z, (defined at local area level)
avsyncspeed (Average synch speed of broadband connections) 11.8719 4.654 4.3 25.4
signal 3G (% of landmass with 3G outdoor coverage) 51.5065 33.916 0 100
notrec2mb (% of homes with broadband not at 2Mbits/second) 12.2081 5.285 3.1 35.9
Observations NT 6,788
Children N 3,971
#
These variables are categorical, see Appendix for full definitions.