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Is TikTok use affecting young people’s sleep? A recent study published in Acta Psychologica explored this question and uncovered an interesting link between TikTok and bedtime habits. The research showed that when teenagers and young adults experience a sense of failing to control their TikTok use, especially when it gets in the way of other responsibilities, they are significantly more likely to postpone going to bed. This finding suggests that the type of TikTok use, not just the amount, is important to consider.
TikTok, a social media platform centered around short-form videos, has experienced a massive surge in popularity around the world, especially among teenagers and young adults. Originally launched in China under the name Douyin, TikTok allows users to create, share, and watch brief, often entertaining videos. Its engaging format and personalized content feeds have made it a dominant force in the social media landscape. This rapid rise has also led to concerns about the potential impact of TikTok on its users, particularly young people who are heavy consumers of social media content.
Like other social media platforms before it, questions have been raised about whether spending time on TikTok might negatively affect young people’s mental well-being, their ability to succeed in school, and their sleep patterns. These concerns became even more pressing during the COVID-19 pandemic when social media became a primary way for many to stay connected while facing lockdowns and social restrictions.
During this period, people, especially young people, spent more time than ever on social media platforms like TikTok. While previous research has examined the effects of social media in general, there has been less focus specifically on TikTok, despite its widespread use. Furthermore, studies conducted before the pandemic showed inconsistent results regarding the links between social media use and well-being, academic success, and sleep. Some studies found negative relationships, while others found no relationship or even, in some cases, a positive connection.
To gain a clearer understanding, researchers from a recent study decided to take a different approach. Instead of just looking at how much time young people spent on TikTok, they focused on the idea of “TikTok self-control failure.” This concept refers to situations where individuals use TikTok even when they know they should be doing something else more important, like studying, working, or getting ready for bed. The researchers reasoned that it might not be just the amount of TikTok use that matters, but rather whether that use is happening at the expense of other important activities. They hypothesized that this lack of self-control regarding TikTok use would have a stronger negative impact on well-being, academic performance, sleep quality, and bedtime habits than simply the overall amount of time spent on the app.
To investigate this, the researchers conducted two separate studies during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. The first study involved 249 adolescents from middle schools in China, aged 12 to 17. The second study included 222 university students, aged 18 to 31, who were studying in the Netherlands but were originally from China.
Participants in both studies were recruited online. The adolescent group was reached through a collaborating school in China, while the university students were recruited through social media groups for Chinese students in the Netherlands. For the younger group, researchers obtained consent from both the students and their parents. University students provided their own consent. Participants completed online surveys that were available in Chinese for the first group and in both Chinese and English for the second group.
The surveys asked participants about their general TikTok use, their experiences with TikTok self-control failure, their well-being, sleep quality, bedtime procrastination related to social media, and academic performance. To measure general TikTok use, participants were asked how often and for how long they typically used TikTok. They estimated their frequency of use on a scale from “never” to “every day” and reported the average number of hours they spent on TikTok on weekdays and weekend days. These measures were combined to create a general TikTok use score.
TikTok self-control failure was measured using a short questionnaire adapted from a scale used in previous research on social media self-control. Participants were asked how often in the past year they gave in to the temptation to use TikTok even when it interfered with other goals, made them use time less efficiently, or caused them to delay other things they needed to do. Responses were given on a scale from “almost never” to “very often.”
Well-being was assessed using questions adapted from a quality of life questionnaire designed for young people. These questions covered aspects of psychological well-being, such as feeling positive emotions and being satisfied with life, as well as well-being related to their school or university environment, like feelings about school and ability to concentrate.
Sleep quality was measured using adapted questions from a widely used sleep questionnaire, focusing on overall sleep quality and how long it usually takes to fall asleep. Social media bedtime procrastination was measured using questions about whether participants went to bed later than intended due to social media use and whether they used social media when they wanted to be sleeping. Academic performance was measured differently for the two groups. For adolescents, it was based on their average scores across all school subjects. For university students, it was based on their average grades in their courses.
After collecting the data, the researchers analyzed the relationships between general TikTok use, TikTok self-control failure, and the various outcome measures. They used statistical tests to see if TikTok self-control failure was more strongly linked to negative outcomes than general TikTok use.
The results showed a consistent pattern across both studies, particularly regarding bedtime procrastination. In both adolescents and university students, TikTok self-control failure was significantly more strongly associated with social media bedtime procrastination than general TikTok use. This means that young people who reported struggling to control their TikTok use and using it when they knew they should be doing other things were more likely to delay their bedtime due to social media compared to those who simply used TikTok frequently or for long periods without reporting self-control issues.
However, for the other outcomes—well-being, academic performance, and sleep quality—the researchers did not find a significant difference in the strength of the relationships between general TikTok use and TikTok self-control failure. In the adolescent group, both general TikTok use and TikTok self-control failure were linked to lower well-being, poorer academic performance, and increased bedtime procrastination. TikTok self-control failure was also associated with lower sleep quality in adolescents. In university students, only TikTok self-control failure showed significant links to lower well-being and increased bedtime procrastination. General TikTok use was not significantly related to any of the measured outcomes in university students.
The researchers suggest that the stronger link between TikTok self-control failure and bedtime procrastination might be because bedtime procrastination is a more immediate and direct consequence of failing to control TikTok use. Outcomes like well-being, academic performance, and sleep quality might be influenced by TikTok self-control failure in more complex and indirect ways, possibly over a longer period.
“The present studies provide, to the best of our knowledge, the first empirical data on the relationships between TikTok use, TikTok self-control failure, and the well-being among middle school and university students during the COVID-19 pandemic, and thus provide important implications for future discussions regarding the potential negative influences of TikTok use in these groups,” the researchers concluded.
“Based on our findings, we suggest that such discussions should focus not only on the frequency of social media (here: TikTok) use and general well-being, but also on situations in which social media use may conflict with other goals and have detrimental effects on various outcomes, such as later bedtimes, poorer sleep quality, and lower academic performance, especially among adolescents. To summarize, we showed that differentiating between a general measure of social media use (i.e., duration and frequency) and a measure of social media self-control failure might provide more fine-grained insights into the relationships between variables of interest for many (social) media researchers.”
The study, “TikTok use versus TikTok self-control failure: Investigating relationships with well-being, academic performance, bedtime procrastination, and sleep quality,” was authored by Ewa Miedzobrodzka, Jie Du, and Guido M. van Koningsbruggen.
