Impact of Media Use on Adolescent Sleep Efficiency

Abstract

Objective In 2010, American youth ages 8-18 spent an average of 7½ hours daily using entertainment media, an increase of more than an hour compared to 2005. Increase in media use is associated with multiple negative outcomes, including decreased sleep time and increased tiredness, but little research has examined whether media use is associated with poorer sleep efficiency when the individual is actually asleep. Methods This study assessed relationships between adolescent media use and sleep efficiency. Fifty-five adolescents (mean age=14.89 years, SD=0.62; 53% African-American, 47% Caucasian) completed self-report measures concerning their media use. Sleep quality was measured by actigraphy for one week, and both sleep offset and sleep efficiency were extracted from actigraphy data. Results Sleep efficiency was negatively correlated to daily time spent text messaging (r(52)=−0.29, p<.05), media use after bed (r(52)=−0.32, p<.05), and number of nighttime awakenings by mobile phones (r(52)=−0.33, p<.05). Decreased sleep efficiency was related to sleeping later in the morning, presumably to make up for lost sleep at night (r(52)=−0.33, p<.05). In a regression model, media use accounted for 30% of the variance in sleep efficiency (Adj. R2=0.30, F(6,44)=3.74, p<0.01). Conclusions Media use after bed, awakenings by a mobile phone at night and sleep offset associated with adolescents’ sleep efficiency. Results support the incorporation of media use habits into adolescent sleep health education and sleep dysfunction interventions. Parental education about the effects of media use on sleep could also mitigate negative effects.

Excessive use of mobile devices and children's physical health

“…Two studies did not find significant associations between media use and sleep‐onset latency (Arora et al, ; Heath et al, ). Three of the studies found a significant association between bedtime social media or smartphone use and increased latency (Fobian, Avis, & Schwebel, ; Pieters et al, ; Scott & Woods, ), while one study found increased latency associated with a measure of internet addiction (Ekİncİ et al, ).…”

Associations of Sleep with Food Cravings, Diet, and Obesity in Adolescence

“…Therefore, incorporation of diet timing, polysomnography, hormone measurement, and cravings over a shorter time span (such as a day or week) may best capture the entire mechanism. Considering the adolescent age range, screen-time may negatively contribute to sleep efficiency, including text messages and media use after bedtime [53]. Media use may also be related to dietary quality [54] and energy intake [55], thus this additional behavior may need to be explored in the context of cravings.…”

The influence of media on the sleep quality in adolescents

“…This form was created by the researcher for the purpose of gathering information related to the variables that had been determined to have an impact, according to a review of the relevant literature, on the children constituting the study sample. 5,6,[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] On this form, the amount of time children engaged in watching TV/cinema, playing computer/console games, using internet, listening to music and playing games with mobile phones during the weekdays and at weekends was evaluated separately.…”