10 ms·

Children's screen time has little effect on sleep, says study

98 points by hanoz 8y ago

makz 8y ago
Everything has little effect on sleep for children XD
nikk1 8y ago
>"This is an especially big problem for teens whose circadian rhythms are already shifting naturally, causing them to feel awake later at night. The end result: sleep-deprived or poorly rested kids who have essentially given themselves a mini case of jet lag" It doesn't seem like a huge problem that teens are getting ~30 minutes less sleep per nights because of technology. Staring at screens is now a major part of our lives and that probably won't change any time soon. I do think we need to consider what time class starts for teenagers who need a solid 8-9 hours of sleep per night. When I was in High School, a 7 am start time required me to be awake at 5 am, which probably contributed to how miserable I felt as a teen.
- josefresco 8y ago
  >When I was in High School, a 7 am start time required me to be awake at 5 am, which probably contributed to how miserable I felt as a teen. In my region they've shifted school start times later to accommodate teens who have late after-school activities. The problem with this logic is that the younger the child, the more sleep they need. The shift for our local teenagers resulted in even earlier start time for elementary and middle school aged kids. Bus schedules also shifted which required me to wake my young kids even earlier (5:30 AM). Thankfully my work is flexible enough that I can drive them, which gives them an extra 30-45 min of time each morning - other parents not so lucky.
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    What's your source on "younger children need more sleep"? Our teen definitely needs much more than his younger sibling. But it seems to be more individual based on my very low n observations, the eldest needed more sleep when he was the age his younger sibling is. I'd expect there to be a sex-based characteristic to sleep needs to?
    - josefresco 8y ago
      I didn't cite my sources because I thought it was common knowledge (my bad). I found this after 1 search query: http://www.aappublications.org/news/2016/06/13/Sleep061316 http://www.aappublications.org/news/2016/06/13/Sleep061316 Two more in case you need some more: https://www.webmd.com/parenting/guide/sleep-children#1 https://www.webmd.com/parenting/guide/sleep-children#1 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-sleep-guidelines-for-babies-kids-and-teens/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-sleep-guidelines-for-babies...
      - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
        The reason I wanted your source was to see the detail - like ranges, breadth of studies, etc.. Many people assume a lot of things that when investigated turn out to be false. Often assertions don't match their backing: for example you said " The problem with this logic is that the younger the child, the more sleep they need." However that's not what your first study says. It gives broad ranges, so it concedes that younger children can need less sleep than older children, it's not tied in a simple way to age. You perhaps meant "on average", which is quite reasonable, and having the source you based you statement on can lead one to assume you were being brief rather than errant. FWIW those sources look like you quickly googled it; and so weren't really relying on any particular sources. TL;DR your source supports my observation and contradicts your claim as written.
        meowface 8y ago
        Your observation is anecdotal, based on a sample size of two, up against what appears to be the scientific consensus.
        behringer 8y ago
        For parents wondering what the right amount is, the right amount is simply how many hours your children wants to sleep. People on a schedule just don't oversleep. The research only really matters if you have medical concerns about your child, for example, you can't get them on any schedule, they're sleepy when they seem to be getting enough sleep, or there's some other issue. Make your schedule malleable for your kids and within a few days you'll pretty much know exactly how much sleep they need.
  - gradys 8y ago
    Younger children may need more sleep in total, but teenagers' circadian rhythm is shifted later relative to adults and younger children. They need 8 hours or so that starts and ends later than younger children. Or at least that's the argument made in the book Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker.
- tome 8y ago
  I'm in favour of making sure teenagers get enough sleep, but why can't they just go to bed earlier?
  - hyperpape 8y ago
    Teenagers' circadian rhythms are shifted later than adults': they naturally go to bed later and sleep later. For most individuals, trying to sleep at times other than your body's rhythm will make it more difficult to go to sleep (though how severe that is varies from individual to individual).
    - tome 8y ago
      What's that controlled by? Exposure to daylight?
      - nicktelford 8y ago
        It's an evolutionary thing. Having children, adolescents, adults and the elderly on different sleep schedules affords a family unit with nearly round the clock protection (as there's nearly always someone awake).
        tome 8y ago
        That's a very interesting hypothesis! I've never heard it before.
        pbhjpbhj 8y ago
        Is it scientific? I can't see how it can be falsified, it seems more like an assertion than a hypothesis?
        tome 8y ago
        "A hypothesis (plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. For a hypothesis to be a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothesis
- Xixi 8y ago
  If think people put way too much importance into clock time. It doesn't really matter what number the clock shows when you wake up. The problem is to sleep early enough to be able to wake up. If you sleep too late you will have a hard time waking up, whether you are trying to wake up at 6am or at 11am. Unless you are particularly sensitive to sunlight, in which case you will wake up with the sun... so certainly quite a bit earlier than most teens would like to. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but it certainly wouldn't have helped me. At my very worst (around 19 or 20) I had a hard time waking up to attend classes at 1:30pm... Which makes sense given that I was going to sleep at 5~6am (CS, Warcraft III, etc.) and I'm a big sleeper (still need a solid 8 to 8:30 hours per night at 35).
  - Symmetry 8y ago
    Clock time doesn't matter, you're right, but it very does matter what time school starts in relation to when the Sun goes up and down - at least if teens spend a good amount of time outside or in rooms with windows.
    - watwut 8y ago
      Most of school year it is dark long before they go to sleep regardless of when they go to sleep. Half the time it is dark when they are leaving activities and it is going to be worst if they stop DST. How much difference makes 4 hours of dark before sleeping vs 5 hours of dark? It also changes constantly. Over year there is hours of difference for when sun goes away, with sun being available longest in summer.
      - ryanmercer 8y ago
        Right? Sunrise today was 7:21 AM, sunset is 5:38 PM. So in Indiana in the winter school should be from what? 9 AM to 3 PM so kids have time to have an early dinner, do their homework and hit the rack by 6 PM? Then what about on June 1st? Sunrise is at 6:20 AM and sunset is at 9:07 PM.
      - Symmetry 8y ago
        It isn't a matter of time since you were exposed to sunlight that causes sleepiness. Rather, you body has its own 24 our cycle called the Circadian rhythm that is phase locked to the solar cycle. If you go into a cave far away from the sun you'll still have a roughly 24 hour sleep/wake cycle but over time it will drift away from the actual day cycle. As far as I'm aware the duty cycle of 24 our sunlight input doesn't have any effect on the ability of the Circadian rhythm to phase match with it. If you're interested in learning more I'd recommend the book Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker.
- epmaybe 8y ago
  Why didn't you sleep earlier?
- milesvp 8y ago
  There was an economic study looking at the economic benefits of sleep. 30 minutes may not sound like much, but it has some serious long term repercussions in lifetime earning. I know economic studies can be kind of gross, and should always be taken with a grain of salt, but Dubner is pretty good at finding really gross flaws in papers (or at least is really good at pointing out potential problems in a study's methods). http://freakonomics.com/2015/07/16/the-economics-of-sleep-part-2-full-transcript/ http://freakonomics.com/2015/07/16/the-economics-of-sleep-pa... >GIBSON: We find that permanently increasing sleep by an hour per week for everybody in a city, increases the wages in that location by about 4.5 percent.
- calewis 8y ago
  Teenagers need 8-10 hours, not 7-9, but it's not just about the total time spent asleep (although this is super critical for teenagers as they need much more) it's about the quality of sleep. Devices close to bed time stimulate the mind with a range of hormones and thought patterns. while teenagers might be able to fall asleep in the same way, they don't sleep as well. This being defined and less regular cycles and fewer and shorter phases of deep sleep, especially in the last phase of deep sleep (the most critical). Without doubt making teenagers get up early to study has a detrimental affect of their learning and it's only our arcane societal norms around sleep that continue to compound this problem.
pasta 8y ago
But it does has an effect on nearsightedness. Since the seventies nearsightedness has become an epedemic because we are reading more and more. So it does not only apply to screen time but more general: reading time.
- dudul 8y ago
  That's interesting. Do you have a link to a study stating this? I also thought nearsightedness increased dramatically mostly due to lack of outdoor time.
- Retric 8y ago
  Nearsighted apparently relates to lack of UV exposure. It’s time spend inside often in school that’s the issue. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5233810/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5233810/
  - dudul 8y ago
    That's also what I thought, but for some reason I got downvoted for it :)
4ndr3vv 8y ago
Note that the study is self reported figure on sleep duration; quality of sleep is not measured. There have been many links between increased blue light and reduced REM/restful sleep
- themodelplumber 8y ago
  Lately I find that I'm growing suspicious of this blue light link to sleep. Not in principle, just something in the way blue light has gained so much traction as a significant factor in sleep quality. Intuitively it feels off, or maybe over-magnified. I'd like to research it some more; do you know of any studies that are worth checking out?
  - dorchadas 8y ago
    I think blue light is important, but I think addiction to phones is even more important. I have students who'll stay up late to answer messages, even though they use the modes that filter blue light. They just have to constantly be checking their phone...Now, if you couple that with blue light not being filtered, then you're facing even more problems.
- ryanmercer 8y ago
  >There have been many links between increased blue light and reduced REM/restful sleep The only decent study I know of about blue light and sleep, was done before the LEDs in phones/tablets/kindles even existed. Which means they were using more traditional light sources that were likely putting out an order of magnitude more luminosity. Everything that suggests tablets/phones/kindles interferes with sleep are woo-woo blogs trying to affiliate link sell you orange safety glasses and similar nonsense. If these devices ARE affecting sleep, it's likely the level of mental stimulation they are providing and the fact that when most people get into bed, they don't shut their mind off and instead start thinking about how Sally post pictures of her 13th fancy meal in her 13th country this month and how John's abs pop way more than theirs and it's just not fair because they count their macros and train and train and just can't get abs like that or they're mad that SniperLulz127 fragged them 4 times this evening in Overwatch Fortress 7 Call of Defeated Zombies.
justaguyhere 8y ago
I went to a camp for a month and had no access to computers and phones. I can vouch that I slept much better during that month than any other time. And every time I tested by not having electronics around my pillow I sleep better. I am not a kid and this is just one data point, but it would take a lot to convince me that screen time doesn't affect sleep. In my experience at least, it has an effect and not a good one.
- funkaster 8y ago
  it could very well that what you did to replace that screen time was what affected your sleep and not the actual lack of screen time: more excercise, more reading, etc. I think screen time on its own is not the issue, it's what other things you do/do not. Everything in excess is (very likely) going to produce a negative effect.
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    That seems like a "pedestrians don't die 'crossing the road without looking', they die getting hit by cars" type distinction. The removal of 'crossing the road without looking' is still the solution.
    - funkaster 8y ago
      Sure. but the argument I (poorly) made was that screen time on its own might not be the only thing affecting sleep time/quality. Think about it this way: if you keep the same amount of screen time, but also do the other things (time playing outside, reading books/comics, playing with in person with friends, etc) then you would prob get the same quality sleep. The thing is that people tend to use screen time as a replacement of those activities. That's IMHO the biggest problem. As a parent of a 2.5yo toddler, I'm not restricting screen time to my son at all, because I want him to get used to them: screens and computers will inevitably be in his life. But I also make sure to play board games with him, read books and let him have actual play time outside in the park with other kids.
    - Klathmon 8y ago
allcentury 8y ago
There's a lot of room for error in this study - I wouldn't draw any conclusions based on this.
deleted 8y ago
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Simulacra 8y ago
SEE MOM! I TOLD YOU!
calewis 8y ago
I have spent the last year building sleep tech and I have read 100's of papers on the subject, been to conferences and spent lots of time with academics and experts on the subject of sleep. Screen time matters massively. It really matters for children and every single piece of evidence, bar this poorly written study (two questions), say so. It's a real issue for adults too, and blue light issue aside, the disturbance of your wind down routine is a massive health issue that needs to be adressed. It affects not only how you fall asleep (the marker for which people judge sleep quality) but also staying asleep and the quality of it (a far more important measure). (Also if anyone is building sleep apps/tech I'm looking for work)
- Roritharr 8y ago
  If you've stumbled in your reading upon any hints on what to do with a two year old that barely sleeps more than 6 hours a day (including naptime) i'd kill for it. We're having a neurologist appointment coming up because of it, but I can't shake the feeling we're just the worst parents. :/ We've taken away all screens from him a month ago, but he won't stop waking up at night, trying to breastfeed as much as possible and not falling asleep before 1 AM.
  - nvusuvu 8y ago
    My sister-in-law only needed 4 hours of sleep a day growing up. Very frustrating for my in-laws. She is in her late 40's now. All this to say, its probably not something you are doing to your son. He might just be that way! :)
    - calewis 8y ago
      This is not strictly accurate. There is some daily mail science about “super humans” who need less than 7-8 hours. And while some people survive like this, your body needs sleep for 7-8 no exceptions. Deep sleep (as important as light sleep) only occurs during long uninterrupted phases. During those phases your body does some amazing things. Amongst other things the production of things like cancer fighting cells and repairing all the physical and mental streses of the day. While not fully understood exactly what, we know the why and lots of good studies prove the correlation between regular quality sleep and better mental and physical well being.
Pica_soO 8y ago
Studies not sponsored by the tobacco industries, says study.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
davebryand 8y ago
What's next? "Children's diet has little effect on their health, says study"? How do they publish things like this with a straight face? This is not tied to the reality that I'm experiencing--you? We don't need peer-reviewed studies to tell us things that are easy to study empirically. Please run an experiment on yourself and make up your mind.
- blacksmith_tb 8y ago
  Well, to be fair, it could be that is has an effect on your children's sleep, and they're anomalous - but that doesn't mean the study is baseless, just that it isn't useful to you specifically.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > This is not tied to the reality that I'm experiencing--you? Certainly in terms of short-term variations in quantity of screen time having little effect, and much smaller than other factors, on sleep time it matches my current experience with my son. Not that I give that experience much weight in general predictions. > We don't need peer-reviewed studies to tell us things that are easy to study empirically. I think you've confused “empirically” with “anecdotally”. N=1 testing has, in the best case, very large error bars in predicting broad population generalities. (And , in most cases, makes it very hard to isolate confounding factors.)
makewavesnotwar 8y ago
This is based off a study as reported by parents of teens "caregiver estimates", not the teens themselves or something potentially even more accurate like Fitbit data. Just because a parent counts their kid as asleep because they're in their room with the lights off doesn't mean they actually are. From personal observation, I randomly see phone screens floating around in the dark while I'm getting up to go to the restroom in the middle of the night all the time. Parents are also less likely to report in ways that make their kids out to be addicts, or themselves out to be bad parents. And there may be a correlation between excessive digital-lives for youths and neglectful parenting. Not to mention that "teens" are generally one of the hardest demographics to study because it's pretty much impossible to get a good control group as it's essentially their first time exercising freedom from control in general. And yeah, 8.5 hours average for teens seems like prima facie BS. Kids wouldn't be "jet-lagged" if they slept that much. I think I was sleeping between 5-7 hours a night depending on how late I was up with friends or on the net when I was a teen (early thirties now). I'm not saying one way or another as to whether or not screen time for youth is a problem or should be a topic of concern, but this article seems like nonsense.
- makewavesnotwar 8y ago
  Also, reading the study further: despite the fact that the author of the article may have been paraphrasing a statement in the abstract conclusion, the study seems to mostly undermine that premise as it shows an inverse relationship between screen time and sleep. https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(18)31384-2/fulltext#s0045 https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(18)31384-2/fulltext...

98 points by hanoz 8y ago

makz 8y ago

Everything has little effect on sleep for children XD

>"This is an especially big problem for teens whose circadian rhythms are already shifting naturally, causing them to feel awake later at night. The end result: sleep-deprived or poorly rested kids who have essentially given themselves a mini case of jet lag" It doesn't seem like a huge problem that teens are getting ~30 minutes less sleep per nights because of technology. Staring at screens is now a major part of our lives and that probably won't change any time soon. I do think we need to consider what time class starts for teenagers who need a solid 8-9 hours of sleep per night. When I was in High School, a 7 am start time required me to be awake at 5 am, which probably contributed to how miserable I felt as a teen.

josefresco 8y ago
>When I was in High School, a 7 am start time required me to be awake at 5 am, which probably contributed to how miserable I felt as a teen. In my region they've shifted school start times later to accommodate teens who have late after-school activities. The problem with this logic is that the younger the child, the more sleep they need. The shift for our local teenagers resulted in even earlier start time for elementary and middle school aged kids. Bus schedules also shifted which required me to wake my young kids even earlier (5:30 AM). Thankfully my work is flexible enough that I can drive them, which gives them an extra 30-45 min of time each morning - other parents not so lucky.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  What's your source on "younger children need more sleep"? Our teen definitely needs much more than his younger sibling. But it seems to be more individual based on my very low n observations, the eldest needed more sleep when he was the age his younger sibling is. I'd expect there to be a sex-based characteristic to sleep needs to?
  - josefresco 8y ago
    I didn't cite my sources because I thought it was common knowledge (my bad). I found this after 1 search query: http://www.aappublications.org/news/2016/06/13/Sleep061316 http://www.aappublications.org/news/2016/06/13/Sleep061316 Two more in case you need some more: https://www.webmd.com/parenting/guide/sleep-children#1 https://www.webmd.com/parenting/guide/sleep-children#1 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-sleep-guidelines-for-babies-kids-and-teens/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-sleep-guidelines-for-babies...
    - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
      The reason I wanted your source was to see the detail - like ranges, breadth of studies, etc.. Many people assume a lot of things that when investigated turn out to be false. Often assertions don't match their backing: for example you said " The problem with this logic is that the younger the child, the more sleep they need." However that's not what your first study says. It gives broad ranges, so it concedes that younger children can need less sleep than older children, it's not tied in a simple way to age. You perhaps meant "on average", which is quite reasonable, and having the source you based you statement on can lead one to assume you were being brief rather than errant. FWIW those sources look like you quickly googled it; and so weren't really relying on any particular sources. TL;DR your source supports my observation and contradicts your claim as written.
      - meowface 8y ago
        Your observation is anecdotal, based on a sample size of two, up against what appears to be the scientific consensus.
      - behringer 8y ago
        For parents wondering what the right amount is, the right amount is simply how many hours your children wants to sleep. People on a schedule just don't oversleep. The research only really matters if you have medical concerns about your child, for example, you can't get them on any schedule, they're sleepy when they seem to be getting enough sleep, or there's some other issue. Make your schedule malleable for your kids and within a few days you'll pretty much know exactly how much sleep they need.
- gradys 8y ago
  Younger children may need more sleep in total, but teenagers' circadian rhythm is shifted later relative to adults and younger children. They need 8 hours or so that starts and ends later than younger children. Or at least that's the argument made in the book Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker.
tome 8y ago
I'm in favour of making sure teenagers get enough sleep, but why can't they just go to bed earlier?
- hyperpape 8y ago
  Teenagers' circadian rhythms are shifted later than adults': they naturally go to bed later and sleep later. For most individuals, trying to sleep at times other than your body's rhythm will make it more difficult to go to sleep (though how severe that is varies from individual to individual).
  - tome 8y ago
    What's that controlled by? Exposure to daylight?
    - nicktelford 8y ago
      It's an evolutionary thing. Having children, adolescents, adults and the elderly on different sleep schedules affords a family unit with nearly round the clock protection (as there's nearly always someone awake).
      - tome 8y ago
        That's a very interesting hypothesis! I've never heard it before.
        pbhjpbhj 8y ago
        Is it scientific? I can't see how it can be falsified, it seems more like an assertion than a hypothesis?
        tome 8y ago
        "A hypothesis (plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. For a hypothesis to be a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothesis
Xixi 8y ago
If think people put way too much importance into clock time. It doesn't really matter what number the clock shows when you wake up. The problem is to sleep early enough to be able to wake up. If you sleep too late you will have a hard time waking up, whether you are trying to wake up at 6am or at 11am. Unless you are particularly sensitive to sunlight, in which case you will wake up with the sun... so certainly quite a bit earlier than most teens would like to. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but it certainly wouldn't have helped me. At my very worst (around 19 or 20) I had a hard time waking up to attend classes at 1:30pm... Which makes sense given that I was going to sleep at 5~6am (CS, Warcraft III, etc.) and I'm a big sleeper (still need a solid 8 to 8:30 hours per night at 35).
- Symmetry 8y ago
  Clock time doesn't matter, you're right, but it very does matter what time school starts in relation to when the Sun goes up and down - at least if teens spend a good amount of time outside or in rooms with windows.
  - watwut 8y ago
    Most of school year it is dark long before they go to sleep regardless of when they go to sleep. Half the time it is dark when they are leaving activities and it is going to be worst if they stop DST. How much difference makes 4 hours of dark before sleeping vs 5 hours of dark? It also changes constantly. Over year there is hours of difference for when sun goes away, with sun being available longest in summer.
    - ryanmercer 8y ago
      Right? Sunrise today was 7:21 AM, sunset is 5:38 PM. So in Indiana in the winter school should be from what? 9 AM to 3 PM so kids have time to have an early dinner, do their homework and hit the rack by 6 PM? Then what about on June 1st? Sunrise is at 6:20 AM and sunset is at 9:07 PM.
    - Symmetry 8y ago
      It isn't a matter of time since you were exposed to sunlight that causes sleepiness. Rather, you body has its own 24 our cycle called the Circadian rhythm that is phase locked to the solar cycle. If you go into a cave far away from the sun you'll still have a roughly 24 hour sleep/wake cycle but over time it will drift away from the actual day cycle. As far as I'm aware the duty cycle of 24 our sunlight input doesn't have any effect on the ability of the Circadian rhythm to phase match with it. If you're interested in learning more I'd recommend the book Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker.
epmaybe 8y ago
Why didn't you sleep earlier?
milesvp 8y ago
There was an economic study looking at the economic benefits of sleep. 30 minutes may not sound like much, but it has some serious long term repercussions in lifetime earning. I know economic studies can be kind of gross, and should always be taken with a grain of salt, but Dubner is pretty good at finding really gross flaws in papers (or at least is really good at pointing out potential problems in a study's methods). http://freakonomics.com/2015/07/16/the-economics-of-sleep-part-2-full-transcript/ http://freakonomics.com/2015/07/16/the-economics-of-sleep-pa... >GIBSON: We find that permanently increasing sleep by an hour per week for everybody in a city, increases the wages in that location by about 4.5 percent.
calewis 8y ago
Teenagers need 8-10 hours, not 7-9, but it's not just about the total time spent asleep (although this is super critical for teenagers as they need much more) it's about the quality of sleep. Devices close to bed time stimulate the mind with a range of hormones and thought patterns. while teenagers might be able to fall asleep in the same way, they don't sleep as well. This being defined and less regular cycles and fewer and shorter phases of deep sleep, especially in the last phase of deep sleep (the most critical). Without doubt making teenagers get up early to study has a detrimental affect of their learning and it's only our arcane societal norms around sleep that continue to compound this problem.

pasta 8y ago

But it does has an effect on nearsightedness. Since the seventies nearsightedness has become an epedemic because we are reading more and more. So it does not only apply to screen time but more general: reading time.

dudul 8y ago
That's interesting. Do you have a link to a study stating this? I also thought nearsightedness increased dramatically mostly due to lack of outdoor time.
Retric 8y ago
Nearsighted apparently relates to lack of UV exposure. It’s time spend inside often in school that’s the issue. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5233810/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5233810/
- dudul 8y ago
  That's also what I thought, but for some reason I got downvoted for it :)

4ndr3vv 8y ago

Note that the study is self reported figure on sleep duration; quality of sleep is not measured. There have been many links between increased blue light and reduced REM/restful sleep

themodelplumber 8y ago
Lately I find that I'm growing suspicious of this blue light link to sleep. Not in principle, just something in the way blue light has gained so much traction as a significant factor in sleep quality. Intuitively it feels off, or maybe over-magnified. I'd like to research it some more; do you know of any studies that are worth checking out?
- dorchadas 8y ago
  I think blue light is important, but I think addiction to phones is even more important. I have students who'll stay up late to answer messages, even though they use the modes that filter blue light. They just have to constantly be checking their phone...Now, if you couple that with blue light not being filtered, then you're facing even more problems.
ryanmercer 8y ago
>There have been many links between increased blue light and reduced REM/restful sleep The only decent study I know of about blue light and sleep, was done before the LEDs in phones/tablets/kindles even existed. Which means they were using more traditional light sources that were likely putting out an order of magnitude more luminosity. Everything that suggests tablets/phones/kindles interferes with sleep are woo-woo blogs trying to affiliate link sell you orange safety glasses and similar nonsense. If these devices ARE affecting sleep, it's likely the level of mental stimulation they are providing and the fact that when most people get into bed, they don't shut their mind off and instead start thinking about how Sally post pictures of her 13th fancy meal in her 13th country this month and how John's abs pop way more than theirs and it's just not fair because they count their macros and train and train and just can't get abs like that or they're mad that SniperLulz127 fragged them 4 times this evening in Overwatch Fortress 7 Call of Defeated Zombies.

justaguyhere 8y ago

I went to a camp for a month and had no access to computers and phones. I can vouch that I slept much better during that month than any other time. And every time I tested by not having electronics around my pillow I sleep better. I am not a kid and this is just one data point, but it would take a lot to convince me that screen time doesn't affect sleep. In my experience at least, it has an effect and not a good one.

funkaster 8y ago
it could very well that what you did to replace that screen time was what affected your sleep and not the actual lack of screen time: more excercise, more reading, etc. I think screen time on its own is not the issue, it's what other things you do/do not. Everything in excess is (very likely) going to produce a negative effect.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  That seems like a "pedestrians don't die 'crossing the road without looking', they die getting hit by cars" type distinction. The removal of 'crossing the road without looking' is still the solution.
  - funkaster 8y ago
    Sure. but the argument I (poorly) made was that screen time on its own might not be the only thing affecting sleep time/quality. Think about it this way: if you keep the same amount of screen time, but also do the other things (time playing outside, reading books/comics, playing with in person with friends, etc) then you would prob get the same quality sleep. The thing is that people tend to use screen time as a replacement of those activities. That's IMHO the biggest problem. As a parent of a 2.5yo toddler, I'm not restricting screen time to my son at all, because I want him to get used to them: screens and computers will inevitably be in his life. But I also make sure to play board games with him, read books and let him have actual play time outside in the park with other kids.
  - Klathmon 8y ago

allcentury 8y ago

There's a lot of room for error in this study - I wouldn't draw any conclusions based on this.

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Simulacra 8y ago

SEE MOM! I TOLD YOU!

calewis 8y ago

I have spent the last year building sleep tech and I have read 100's of papers on the subject, been to conferences and spent lots of time with academics and experts on the subject of sleep. Screen time matters massively. It really matters for children and every single piece of evidence, bar this poorly written study (two questions), say so. It's a real issue for adults too, and blue light issue aside, the disturbance of your wind down routine is a massive health issue that needs to be adressed. It affects not only how you fall asleep (the marker for which people judge sleep quality) but also staying asleep and the quality of it (a far more important measure). (Also if anyone is building sleep apps/tech I'm looking for work)

Roritharr 8y ago
If you've stumbled in your reading upon any hints on what to do with a two year old that barely sleeps more than 6 hours a day (including naptime) i'd kill for it. We're having a neurologist appointment coming up because of it, but I can't shake the feeling we're just the worst parents. :/ We've taken away all screens from him a month ago, but he won't stop waking up at night, trying to breastfeed as much as possible and not falling asleep before 1 AM.
- nvusuvu 8y ago
  My sister-in-law only needed 4 hours of sleep a day growing up. Very frustrating for my in-laws. She is in her late 40's now. All this to say, its probably not something you are doing to your son. He might just be that way! :)
  - calewis 8y ago
    This is not strictly accurate. There is some daily mail science about “super humans” who need less than 7-8 hours. And while some people survive like this, your body needs sleep for 7-8 no exceptions. Deep sleep (as important as light sleep) only occurs during long uninterrupted phases. During those phases your body does some amazing things. Amongst other things the production of things like cancer fighting cells and repairing all the physical and mental streses of the day. While not fully understood exactly what, we know the why and lots of good studies prove the correlation between regular quality sleep and better mental and physical well being.

Pica_soO 8y ago

Studies not sponsored by the tobacco industries, says study.

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davebryand 8y ago

What's next? "Children's diet has little effect on their health, says study"? How do they publish things like this with a straight face? This is not tied to the reality that I'm experiencing--you? We don't need peer-reviewed studies to tell us things that are easy to study empirically. Please run an experiment on yourself and make up your mind.

blacksmith_tb 8y ago
Well, to be fair, it could be that is has an effect on your children's sleep, and they're anomalous - but that doesn't mean the study is baseless, just that it isn't useful to you specifically.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> This is not tied to the reality that I'm experiencing--you? Certainly in terms of short-term variations in quantity of screen time having little effect, and much smaller than other factors, on sleep time it matches my current experience with my son. Not that I give that experience much weight in general predictions. > We don't need peer-reviewed studies to tell us things that are easy to study empirically. I think you've confused “empirically” with “anecdotally”. N=1 testing has, in the best case, very large error bars in predicting broad population generalities. (And , in most cases, makes it very hard to isolate confounding factors.)

makewavesnotwar 8y ago

This is based off a study as reported by parents of teens "caregiver estimates", not the teens themselves or something potentially even more accurate like Fitbit data. Just because a parent counts their kid as asleep because they're in their room with the lights off doesn't mean they actually are. From personal observation, I randomly see phone screens floating around in the dark while I'm getting up to go to the restroom in the middle of the night all the time. Parents are also less likely to report in ways that make their kids out to be addicts, or themselves out to be bad parents. And there may be a correlation between excessive digital-lives for youths and neglectful parenting. Not to mention that "teens" are generally one of the hardest demographics to study because it's pretty much impossible to get a good control group as it's essentially their first time exercising freedom from control in general. And yeah, 8.5 hours average for teens seems like prima facie BS. Kids wouldn't be "jet-lagged" if they slept that much. I think I was sleeping between 5-7 hours a night depending on how late I was up with friends or on the net when I was a teen (early thirties now). I'm not saying one way or another as to whether or not screen time for youth is a problem or should be a topic of concern, but this article seems like nonsense.

makewavesnotwar 8y ago
Also, reading the study further: despite the fact that the author of the article may have been paraphrasing a statement in the abstract conclusion, the study seems to mostly undermine that premise as it shows an inverse relationship between screen time and sleep. https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(18)31384-2/fulltext#s0045 https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(18)31384-2/fulltext...