Almost every adolescent is attached at the hip to their cellphones, but could that be affecting their sleep? A study published in Sleep Health suggests that having TV or internet-connected devices in the bedroom can be disturbing to adolescents’ sleep patterns.
Sleep is extremely important for health, especially so when it comes to the emotional, cognitive, and physical development of children and adolescents. Lack of quality sleep in adolescence can be linked to weight gain, poor cognitive development, and socioemotional difficulties.
Despite the importance of sleep in adolescence, teens and preteens are especially vulnerable to some of the biggest social and environmental factors that disturb sleep, including screen time. Previous research has linked screen time with poor sleep, but this study sought to explore more specific associations between screen time and sleep, especially concerning bedtime electronic usage.
For their study, Jason M. Nagata and colleagues utilized data from a longitudinal study that followed a cohort of 11,878 children from 21 sites throughout the United States. The data used for this study was from year 2 of the data collection, when most participants were 11 or 12 years old, although ages range from 10 to 14.
Data was used from 10,280 individuals for this study. Participants completed measures on screen usage around bedtime, overall screen usage, sleep outcomes, and sleep disturbances. Data was also pulled for sociodemographic information, such as sex, race, ethnicity, age, household income, and education level of parents.
Results showed that using screens around bedtime was associated with self-reported difficulty falling or staying asleep for early adolescents and was also associated with caregiver-reported sleep disturbances for adolescents. Screen activity included watching television, playing video games, using social media, texting, and talking on the phone.
Both boys and girls experienced sleep disturbances when using screens before bed, especially if they had a TV or internet-connected device in their bedroom.
Most adolescents had an electronic device in the bedroom and a bit more than half reported turning cellphones off overnight. Leaving cell phone ringers activated also led to more sleep problems compared to turning them off. Adolescents who were woken up by calls, texts, or emails while sleeping and adolescents who left their phone ringer on overnight showed higher levels of difficulty falling or staying asleep.
The researchers noted that the blue light emitted by screens may suppress the hormone melatonin, which helps us feel drowsy, leading to delayed sleep and disturbances. Other factors such as content or activity on devices, vibrations, notification sounds and lights, and less association of the bedroom as a sleep environment could contribute to sleep problems.
Interestingly, reading (including using electronic devices for reading) before bed did not show a link to sleep problems in this study. However, further research is needed to confirm if reading before bed is beneficial for sleep, the researchers said.
This study took steps into better understanding specifics of the relationship between screen time and sleep for early adolescents. Despite this, there are limitations to note. One such limitation is that screen time was measured via self-report, which is not as reliable as objective measures. Another is that though data was pulled from a longitudinal study, this research was cross-sectional, which means casual relationships cannot be inferred from the results.
“This study advances our understanding of screen usage behaviors and associated sleep outcomes among early adolescents and suggests that limiting screen usage around bedtime may help these populations with sleep management,” Nagata and colleagues concluded.
The study, “Bedtime screen use behaviors and sleep outcomes: Findings from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study”, was authored by Jason M. Nagata, Gurbinder Singh, Joanne H. Yang, Natalia Smith, Orsolya Kiss, Kyle T. Ganson, Alexander Testa, Dylan B. Jackson, and Fiona C. Baker.