The time that children and adolescents spend using screens has consequences on their health and emotional well-being. It is known, for example, that the use of electronic devices affects sleep, but now, in addition, a new study shows that using screens interactively, such as sending text messages or playing video games, delays and reduces the time spent asleep more than remaining passive in front of a screen, such as watching television, especially in the case of adolescents.
The research has been carried out by scientists from Pennsyvania State University (USA) who have found that 15-year-old adolescents who used screens to communicate with friends or play video games an hour before bedtime took 30 minutes longer to fall asleep that if they had avoided the use of an interactive screen.
Furthermore, as the researchers explained, it was not only the time in front of an interactive screen before going to bed that influenced the children’s sleep, but for every hour of the day that the children spent playing video games beyond the usual, His sleep was delayed by about 10 minutes. The results of the work have been published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
“If teenagers normally play video games for an hour each day, but one day a new game comes out and they play for four hours, that’s three extra hours on top of what they normally play,” says David Reichenberger, a postdoctoral scholar at Penn State and director of the study. “That means they could be 15 minutes behind on their sleep schedule that night. For a child, losing 15 minutes of sleep at night is important. It’s especially hard when they have to get up in the morning to go to school. If they delay their sleep, they won’t be able to catch it up in the morning. Without adequate sleep, children are at higher risk for obesity, as well as cognitive, emotion regulation, and mental health problems.”
Avoid interaction through screens before going to bed
The researchers studied the daytime screen activities of 475 adolescents who answered daily surveys for three or more days. They asked teens how many hours they had spent that day communicating with friends via email, instant messaging, text messages, phone calls, or through social media. They also asked them how many hours they spent playing video games, surfing the Internet, and watching television or videos. Finally, the researchers asked whether the teens had participated in any of these activities in the hour before going to bed.
They then used accelerometers to measure the teens’ sleep duration for a week. Reichenberger explained that the devices, which are typically worn on the wrist, measure a person’s movements. “When the participant is less active, we can infer that he is probably asleep,” she explained. “It’s more accurate than asking them how many hours they slept.”
The researchers found that teens spent an average of two hours a day communicating with friends via email, instant messaging, phone texting, or social media. They spent slightly less time (about 1.3 hours a day) playing video games, less than an hour a day surfing the Internet, and about 1.7 hours a day watching television or videos. In the hour before bedtime, children communicated or played video games through a phone, computer or tablet 77% of the time, and watched television or movies 69% of the time.
“Without adequate sleep, children are at greater risk for obesity, as well as cognitive, emotion regulation, and mental health problems.”
Overall, the teens slept an average of 7.8 hours per night. For every hour of the day they used screens to communicate with friends, they fell asleep about 11 minutes later on average. For every hour they used screens to play video games, they fell asleep about 9 minutes later. Those who talked, texted or played games on a device an hour before bedtime were the ones who lost the most sleep, with their sleep starting about 30 minutes later.
Reichenberger said that, interestingly, they found no significant associations between passive screen-based activities – such as surfing the Internet and watching television, videos and movies – and subsequent sleep. “It could be that these more passive activities are less mentally stimulating than interactive activities, such as texting and playing video games,” said Anne-Marie Chang, associate professor of biobehavioral health and co-author of the study.
As for what parents can do to protect their teens’ quality of sleep, Chang says, “It’s a complicated situation” because “these tools are really important for everyone today, so it’s hard to put a limit on them, but “If you are really looking out for the health and well-being of a teenager, then you might consider limiting more interactive activities, especially in the hour before bed.”
