Parents of kids and teenagers have long been warned in regards to the dangers of screen time and digital devices before bed – with concerns that screens can harm young people's sleep patterns.
But do screens really harm the length and quality of sleep?
our New research Screen use in bed was found to be worse than screen use within the hours before bed.
Sleep guidelines recommend no screen use two hours before bedtime. But we found that screen time within the two hours before bed had little effect on sleep in teens. Instead, it was screen time once in bed that caused the issues.
Using cameras to trace device use and sleep, we found that device use in bed may cause more harm than screen time until bedtime.
The findings challenge long-held assumptions about nightly screen time and will help parents improve their children's sleep quality.
Combining sleep and screens
A lot of international organizations Advise teenagers to stop using the devices. In the hour or two before bed, and as an alternative Do the activities Like reading a book or quiet time with family.
But these recommendations are based on research with several limitations. The studies were designed in such a way that the researchers could link sleep and screens. But they don't tell us whether changes in youth screen use have any effect on sleep length or quality.
Most existing research also used questionnaires to evaluate each screen time and sleep. Questionnaires are unlikely to capture screen time accurately, especially for those who're focused on how much time a teenager spends on their device.
To address a few of these weaknesses in previous research, we asked 85 11- to 14-year-olds to wear body cameras on their chests three hours before bed for 4 nights.
These cameras faced the surface and accurately captured when, what and the way teens used their screens. Because we were also focused on screen time at night, a second infrared camera was placed on a tripod within the teenagers' bedrooms and captured their screen time while in bed. Research participants also wore an Actigraph — a watch-sized device that objectively measured screen time.
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Teen night activity
It quickly became clear that teenagers spent quite a lot of their screen time while in bed.
Our evaluation checked out two time periods – from two hours before they went to bed, and once they were in bed (obviously under the covers) until they put down their devices and apparently fell asleep. were trying
Our data showed that 99% of teenagers used a screen within the two hours before bed, greater than half once they were in bed, and a 3rd even after trying to go to sleep at night. Only one adolescent didn't use a screen before bed on any of the 4 nights.
Their bedtime screen time had little effect on their sleep that night. However, screen time once in bed disrupted their sleep. It kept them from falling asleep for about half an hour, and the quantity of sleep they got that night was reduced.
This was very true for more interactive screen activities like gaming and multitasking – after they use multiple device at the identical time (like watching a movie on Netflix on a laptop while playing Xbox on a gaming device).
In fact, every additional ten minutes of this kind of screen time reduced the quantity of sleep that night by in regards to the same amount – nine minutes.
Revising the rules
Our research was an observational study taking a look at the established screen habits of young people.
The next step to higher understand this might be to conduct experiments that may actually display the consequences of differing kinds and amounts of screen time on sleep.
That said, what we've already found challenges existing guidelines. Screens at night is probably not the swamp man they're made out to be. But allowing teenagers to have a screen in bed may be detrimental to their sleep quality.
So the straightforward message is perhaps to maintain these devices out of the bedroom.