10 ms·

A wave of sleep laws for teens?

74 points by dylancollins 3y ago

lotsoweiners 3y ago
I foresee a rise in before school programs. My oldest child’s school starts at 8:20 but you’d better believe he gets dropped off at 7:20 when doors open. It just aligns better with my schedule and he’s awake before 6 AM anyways.
WillPostForFood 3y ago
I hope the ACT/SAT get with the program. Have a teen who just took the SAT and had to be there before 7:45. On a Saturday, so no good reason for such an early start time. Give them until at least 9!
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  Surely the good reason for the early start on a Saturday, is that all the adults running the exam can finish everything quickly enough to still have a restful weekend.
  - bigDinosaur 3y ago
    If I were an adult running an exam on a Saturday I'd be sad if it started any time before 9-10am. It isn't just teenagers who despise waking early or who have night owl aligned chronotypes.
  - doh 3y ago
    Isn't it their job that they get compensated for? If I am not completely off, if this is a paid job (most likely with overtime and extra for weekend), then they have absolutely no reason to do that early.
- AnnikaL 3y ago
  My high school offered the SAT during a normal school day, which seems much nicer that having to do it early Saturday morning! (And means the teachers can double as proctors.)
Areading314 3y ago
The trick is to go to bed earlier. This doesn't seem to actually solve any problems
- kelseyfrog 3y ago
  We're already telling them to go to bed earlier. However, they aren't rational because they are not yet adults. Therefore, an imperfect solution is better than the current situation. I've seen this sort of template play out in many contexts, the most recent being fluoridated water ex: We shouldn't fluoridate water, even it if improves dental health because kids should stop ingesting sugar. I'm curious, where does this mindset comes from?
  - Nifty3929 3y ago
    Fluoride and sugar operate completely independently on dental health. Fluoride is very beneficial, regardless of any other diet or dental hygiene factors. If you eat a lot of sugar, fluoride helps. If you don't eat any sugar, fluoride still helps. I don't agree with putting fluoride in the water - but it should be available to anyone without a prescription.
  - ttymck 3y ago
    What's an adult? I'm late 20s and most of my peers still aren't rational.
    - batiudrami 3y ago
      But it was worse when you were a teenager, no?
    - drdaeman 3y ago
      Certainly not before forties. I'm almost forty, and it's still the same in this age group; myself included (just less frequently than in my 20's because I can't afford luxuries such as no-visible-consequences all-nighters anymore, I guess). ;)
    - kelseyfrog 3y ago
EscapeFromNY 3y ago
Yes please! I got called lazy as a kid since I had trouble getting up at 5:30am daily so I could walk to school. My generation is already fucked, but maybe we can fix things for the next one. EDIT: and my school district was staggered the wrong direction. High school started earliest, then middle school, then primary school was latest. That's backwards from how it should have been, if anyone in my city had understood how the circadian rhythm changes during adolescence.
- dorkwood 3y ago
  My father used to throw a glass of water on me if I tried to sleep in on the weekends. Twenty years later, I think my brain is still trying to catch up on that lost sleep.
  - gpspake 3y ago
    That sounds pretty terrible.. My dad installed a little mini school bell next to my bed with a button he could push from downstairs. I used to hate it and do all sorts of things to disable it. Recently, I was visiting and I pushed the button and it still worked. As a dad, I had a little moment of realizing how hilarious it is in hindsight. Not sure if I'd feel the same way about the water.
  - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
    Same glass of water from Dad here, although it was on weekdays, when I could hardly stand to face another day of school. I had trouble adapting to an adult sleep schedule from a very early age, and had some embarrassing episodes, as well as weird stuff like slipping into a dry bathtub late at night because I wanted to read a book. In high school, I began checking out, and my depression was chronic and major. I had a "girlfriend" (who was abusing me) so I stayed up late at night on the phone or visiting her. I was falling asleep and falling behind in classes. My parents were beside themselves. It didn't get any better.
- cool_dude85 3y ago
  >High school started earliest, then middle school, then primary school was latest. That's backwards from how it should have been, if anyone in my city had understood how the circadian rhythm changes during adolescence. The explanation I always heard for this structure, very common in the US, is to allow for after school jobs for high schoolers.
clnq 3y ago
I can't comment on laws, but I can comment on sleep hygiene. If you are dealing with revenge bedtime procrastination (it's a term) or a non-24 hour circadian rhythm, the later you have to wake up, the later you will go to sleep. Many people are dealing with things like that. I would regularly see my co-workers online at 2 - 3 am when our core hours were 10 am - 5 pm. My company recently changed core hrs to 12 pm - 2 pm, and unsurprisingly, I see the same co-workers up at 5 am. I would expect to see people online throughout the night if we shifted core hours to 3 pm - 5 pm, even if that schedule perfectly accommodates typical working times. N = 4 or 5, but I don't think delaying school times will solve much. Going to bed earlier can solve it, though it's difficult for people with RBP or unusual circadian rhythms. But keeping a regular schedule and getting 9+ hours of sleep becomes possible for many after a few weeks of sticking with a good sleep hygiene.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- blargey 3y ago
  According to the link, the laws say “class must start after 8:30am”, and there’s often an earlier scheduled bus pickup to make, so you have to account for that in waking times, unlike WFH business hours where you can roll out of bed and open slack/zoom in 10 minutes if pressed. I think the concerns are different at that time range.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
  There was a serious study in the UK where high schoolers should be starting at 10 am school. They changed school hours for them, so I have to disagree. I was seriously penalized because I was useless early in the morning, so I'm still quite annoyed by this.
- eyelidlessness 3y ago
  > I would regularly see my co-workers online at 2 - 3 am when our core hours were 10 am - 5 pm. My company recently changed core hrs to 12 pm - 2 pm, and unsurprisingly, I see the same co-workers up at 5 am. Not calling you out, and I mean this kindly… but this is kind of a smelt-it/dealt-it observation right? If you’re observing them awake at hours that aren’t healthy for them, you have to be awake at the same time to observe it? More productive I hope: if people are shifting their sleep this way as core hours are clamped, it’s probably a sign that the core hours aren’t consistent with working hours, and people are moving demanding work around to fit their schedules as best they can. That’s not a problem the individual workers can address, it’s a process and culture problem.
g9yuayon 3y ago
The US is a strange place. On one hand, teachers do not treat academic performance as prominently as those in hyper competitive countries, say, China. Classes in high school are easy. Exams are generally easy. Teachers normally do not spend lots of time coming up with enlightening or challenging problem sets. SAT and ACT are embarrassingly not challenging or differentiating. They have only multiple choices, for fuck's sake -- the simplest form in an exam in other countries! The message from the US education system appears to be that it's okay if you don't want to excel in school but we will give you lots of resources if you're an elite student. On the other hand, the competition is not going away. It just gets hidden or gets distributed to families. So, kids take 10+ AP courses, if not 15+ as in many of Bay Area schools. Kids participated in hyper competitive ECs to show that they are made to change the world to appease the admission officers. In the meantime, they still need to maintain high, if not perfect, GPAs. As a result, they sacrifice their sleep and therefore their health. It's as if there are two worlds in the US. When I read the novel Folding Beijing, I felt that I was reading about the US's education system, which is sad.
- PragmaticPulp 3y ago
  > It's as if there are two worlds in the US. The US is very far from a monoculture. Culture and personal values vary greatly from one family to the next, even within the same region. I worked for a company with a lot of non-US offices with a lot of younger people who always had a lot of questions about US culture. I think they got tired of me explaining that the US is extremely diverse when it comes to culture and values. They always wanted one, singular answer about how people in the US do things in their personal and family lives. When describing their own countries, they’d confidently say “Here, we all do it this way” as if their entire country followed a singular culture. It was interesting to see how this sense of monoculture (however unrealistic) varied from country to country, but rarely applied to discussions about the US. Of course, internet commenters love to generalize about US people, generally in a negative light. Even US citizens love to criticize the US. However, one of the things I love most about living here is the wide array of values and cultures and the freedom to do your own thing
  - EscapeFromNY 3y ago
thewebcount 3y ago
That chart shows percentage of students getting at least 9 hours of sleep. Holy crap! In high school I used to go to bed around 11PM because my parents made me, and I would stare at the ceiling until I fell asleep at 2 or 3AM. Then my alarm would ring at 6:15 and I’d drag my ass into the shower and be a zombie through at least my first 3 classes. I’d get home at 2:30 and couldn’t keep from falling asleep since I was so exhausted.
- rieg3c 3y ago
  i feel this so much. i didn't know shit about sleep back then, but in retrospective i had such poor sleeping habits and was barely getting 7 hours of sleep at much on most nights for such a long time, it feels terrible to know this now haha.
kpw94 3y ago
Why isn't there a simple study on how delaying school starts improve scores using existing data? Literally today, most schools start at the exact same "time" (8:00am). But there's a big shift in actual solar time if you're on the far east or far west of a given time zone: https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/03/03/article-2572317-1C01C1CD00000578-141_964x612.jpg https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/03/03/article-2572317-1... Do we see across the US a huge SAT score difference between kids on the most east of Pacific time and kids on west of Central time, and between kids east of Central time and west of Eastern time? And within a the states that are pretty uniform (not the costal ones, as the socioeconomic differences would probably be too big), is there a big difference of SAT scores between the eastern-most highschoolers and Western-most highschoolers?
mensetmanusman 3y ago
Get rid of artificial lighting during the week, force devices off at 6 pm.
rramadass 3y ago
Growing up in India, i went to a School whose timings were 11:30am to 4:40pm (with a 30min break for lunch). In hindsight it was one of the best things about the school. You slept well, did some studies/homework in the morning when fresh, had a good "brunch" and then left for school all rested/fueled and ready to go. Getting back from school, you had something to eat and then went out to play with your friends until 6pm (or when it got dark). Washup after play and hit homework from 7pm onwards. Dinner around 8:30/9pm and hit the bed around 10pm. I think a schedule like the above is just what is needed for today's times.
- apple4ever 3y ago
  That sounds perfect! That should be the schedule absolutely.
  - rramadass 3y ago
    I think we need such a School/Job schedule for everybody. 11am-5pm (with two 30-min break in between) should be the max study/work hours. It gives us enough time for ourselves in a day to take care of all other things like family time/recreation/sports/etc. This is even more important today because we have so many things (distractions and otherwise) that demand our time. A lot of illnesses due to poor lifestyles and bad Work-Life balance would simply disappear and we would all be healthier and happier.
BlackLotus89 3y ago
>=9h of sleep is imho too much. Regarding sleep there is much contradicting research and books [0], but most stuff I read (not citing anything) points to 7-8h as a sweet spot and some doctors say that some people need less sleep for reasons (tm). Anyway back to my point: A graph on teen sleep showing 9 or more hours in percent is a bad proof of worse sleep schedules in teens since imho more than 9 hours of sleep could be bad for you as well... [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26684519 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26684519
- bleep_bloop 3y ago
  I mean, you can very easily google and see there is scientific consensus that teenagers require more than 8hrs of sleep, with 9 or 10 being optimal although there will always be outliers. the 7-8 you reference is for adults 25yrs+. As a general rule humans require less sleep the older they get.
costanzaDynasty 3y ago
I would say that any solution to solving the American Educational system should start with a dramatic reduction in child care costs. Also were I trying to solve public education, I would give more weight to people who have actually gone to public schools.

74 points by dylancollins 3y ago

I foresee a rise in before school programs. My oldest child’s school starts at 8:20 but you’d better believe he gets dropped off at 7:20 when doors open. It just aligns better with my schedule and he’s awake before 6 AM anyways.

WillPostForFood 3y ago

I hope the ACT/SAT get with the program. Have a teen who just took the SAT and had to be there before 7:45. On a Saturday, so no good reason for such an early start time. Give them until at least 9!

OfSanguineFire 3y ago
Surely the good reason for the early start on a Saturday, is that all the adults running the exam can finish everything quickly enough to still have a restful weekend.
- bigDinosaur 3y ago
  If I were an adult running an exam on a Saturday I'd be sad if it started any time before 9-10am. It isn't just teenagers who despise waking early or who have night owl aligned chronotypes.
- doh 3y ago
  Isn't it their job that they get compensated for? If I am not completely off, if this is a paid job (most likely with overtime and extra for weekend), then they have absolutely no reason to do that early.
AnnikaL 3y ago
My high school offered the SAT during a normal school day, which seems much nicer that having to do it early Saturday morning! (And means the teachers can double as proctors.)

Areading314 3y ago

The trick is to go to bed earlier. This doesn't seem to actually solve any problems

kelseyfrog 3y ago
We're already telling them to go to bed earlier. However, they aren't rational because they are not yet adults. Therefore, an imperfect solution is better than the current situation. I've seen this sort of template play out in many contexts, the most recent being fluoridated water ex: We shouldn't fluoridate water, even it if improves dental health because kids should stop ingesting sugar. I'm curious, where does this mindset comes from?
- Nifty3929 3y ago
  Fluoride and sugar operate completely independently on dental health. Fluoride is very beneficial, regardless of any other diet or dental hygiene factors. If you eat a lot of sugar, fluoride helps. If you don't eat any sugar, fluoride still helps. I don't agree with putting fluoride in the water - but it should be available to anyone without a prescription.
- ttymck 3y ago
  What's an adult? I'm late 20s and most of my peers still aren't rational.
  - batiudrami 3y ago
    But it was worse when you were a teenager, no?
  - drdaeman 3y ago
    Certainly not before forties. I'm almost forty, and it's still the same in this age group; myself included (just less frequently than in my 20's because I can't afford luxuries such as no-visible-consequences all-nighters anymore, I guess). ;)
  - kelseyfrog 3y ago

EscapeFromNY 3y ago

Yes please! I got called lazy as a kid since I had trouble getting up at 5:30am daily so I could walk to school. My generation is already fucked, but maybe we can fix things for the next one. EDIT: and my school district was staggered the wrong direction. High school started earliest, then middle school, then primary school was latest. That's backwards from how it should have been, if anyone in my city had understood how the circadian rhythm changes during adolescence.

dorkwood 3y ago
My father used to throw a glass of water on me if I tried to sleep in on the weekends. Twenty years later, I think my brain is still trying to catch up on that lost sleep.
- gpspake 3y ago
  That sounds pretty terrible.. My dad installed a little mini school bell next to my bed with a button he could push from downstairs. I used to hate it and do all sorts of things to disable it. Recently, I was visiting and I pushed the button and it still worked. As a dad, I had a little moment of realizing how hilarious it is in hindsight. Not sure if I'd feel the same way about the water.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  Same glass of water from Dad here, although it was on weekdays, when I could hardly stand to face another day of school. I had trouble adapting to an adult sleep schedule from a very early age, and had some embarrassing episodes, as well as weird stuff like slipping into a dry bathtub late at night because I wanted to read a book. In high school, I began checking out, and my depression was chronic and major. I had a "girlfriend" (who was abusing me) so I stayed up late at night on the phone or visiting her. I was falling asleep and falling behind in classes. My parents were beside themselves. It didn't get any better.
cool_dude85 3y ago
>High school started earliest, then middle school, then primary school was latest. That's backwards from how it should have been, if anyone in my city had understood how the circadian rhythm changes during adolescence. The explanation I always heard for this structure, very common in the US, is to allow for after school jobs for high schoolers.

clnq 3y ago

I can't comment on laws, but I can comment on sleep hygiene. If you are dealing with revenge bedtime procrastination (it's a term) or a non-24 hour circadian rhythm, the later you have to wake up, the later you will go to sleep. Many people are dealing with things like that. I would regularly see my co-workers online at 2 - 3 am when our core hours were 10 am - 5 pm. My company recently changed core hrs to 12 pm - 2 pm, and unsurprisingly, I see the same co-workers up at 5 am. I would expect to see people online throughout the night if we shifted core hours to 3 pm - 5 pm, even if that schedule perfectly accommodates typical working times. N = 4 or 5, but I don't think delaying school times will solve much. Going to bed earlier can solve it, though it's difficult for people with RBP or unusual circadian rhythms. But keeping a regular schedule and getting 9+ hours of sleep becomes possible for many after a few weeks of sticking with a good sleep hygiene.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
blargey 3y ago
According to the link, the laws say “class must start after 8:30am”, and there’s often an earlier scheduled bus pickup to make, so you have to account for that in waking times, unlike WFH business hours where you can roll out of bed and open slack/zoom in 10 minutes if pressed. I think the concerns are different at that time range.
Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
There was a serious study in the UK where high schoolers should be starting at 10 am school. They changed school hours for them, so I have to disagree. I was seriously penalized because I was useless early in the morning, so I'm still quite annoyed by this.
eyelidlessness 3y ago
> I would regularly see my co-workers online at 2 - 3 am when our core hours were 10 am - 5 pm. My company recently changed core hrs to 12 pm - 2 pm, and unsurprisingly, I see the same co-workers up at 5 am. Not calling you out, and I mean this kindly… but this is kind of a smelt-it/dealt-it observation right? If you’re observing them awake at hours that aren’t healthy for them, you have to be awake at the same time to observe it? More productive I hope: if people are shifting their sleep this way as core hours are clamped, it’s probably a sign that the core hours aren’t consistent with working hours, and people are moving demanding work around to fit their schedules as best they can. That’s not a problem the individual workers can address, it’s a process and culture problem.

g9yuayon 3y ago

The US is a strange place. On one hand, teachers do not treat academic performance as prominently as those in hyper competitive countries, say, China. Classes in high school are easy. Exams are generally easy. Teachers normally do not spend lots of time coming up with enlightening or challenging problem sets. SAT and ACT are embarrassingly not challenging or differentiating. They have only multiple choices, for fuck's sake -- the simplest form in an exam in other countries! The message from the US education system appears to be that it's okay if you don't want to excel in school but we will give you lots of resources if you're an elite student. On the other hand, the competition is not going away. It just gets hidden or gets distributed to families. So, kids take 10+ AP courses, if not 15+ as in many of Bay Area schools. Kids participated in hyper competitive ECs to show that they are made to change the world to appease the admission officers. In the meantime, they still need to maintain high, if not perfect, GPAs. As a result, they sacrifice their sleep and therefore their health. It's as if there are two worlds in the US. When I read the novel Folding Beijing, I felt that I was reading about the US's education system, which is sad.

PragmaticPulp 3y ago
> It's as if there are two worlds in the US. The US is very far from a monoculture. Culture and personal values vary greatly from one family to the next, even within the same region. I worked for a company with a lot of non-US offices with a lot of younger people who always had a lot of questions about US culture. I think they got tired of me explaining that the US is extremely diverse when it comes to culture and values. They always wanted one, singular answer about how people in the US do things in their personal and family lives. When describing their own countries, they’d confidently say “Here, we all do it this way” as if their entire country followed a singular culture. It was interesting to see how this sense of monoculture (however unrealistic) varied from country to country, but rarely applied to discussions about the US. Of course, internet commenters love to generalize about US people, generally in a negative light. Even US citizens love to criticize the US. However, one of the things I love most about living here is the wide array of values and cultures and the freedom to do your own thing
- EscapeFromNY 3y ago

thewebcount 3y ago

That chart shows percentage of students getting at least 9 hours of sleep. Holy crap! In high school I used to go to bed around 11PM because my parents made me, and I would stare at the ceiling until I fell asleep at 2 or 3AM. Then my alarm would ring at 6:15 and I’d drag my ass into the shower and be a zombie through at least my first 3 classes. I’d get home at 2:30 and couldn’t keep from falling asleep since I was so exhausted.

rieg3c 3y ago
i feel this so much. i didn't know shit about sleep back then, but in retrospective i had such poor sleeping habits and was barely getting 7 hours of sleep at much on most nights for such a long time, it feels terrible to know this now haha.

kpw94 3y ago

Why isn't there a simple study on how delaying school starts improve scores using existing data? Literally today, most schools start at the exact same "time" (8:00am). But there's a big shift in actual solar time if you're on the far east or far west of a given time zone: https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/03/03/article-2572317-1C01C1CD00000578-141_964x612.jpg https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/03/03/article-2572317-1... Do we see across the US a huge SAT score difference between kids on the most east of Pacific time and kids on west of Central time, and between kids east of Central time and west of Eastern time? And within a the states that are pretty uniform (not the costal ones, as the socioeconomic differences would probably be too big), is there a big difference of SAT scores between the eastern-most highschoolers and Western-most highschoolers?

mensetmanusman 3y ago

Get rid of artificial lighting during the week, force devices off at 6 pm.

rramadass 3y ago

Growing up in India, i went to a School whose timings were 11:30am to 4:40pm (with a 30min break for lunch). In hindsight it was one of the best things about the school. You slept well, did some studies/homework in the morning when fresh, had a good "brunch" and then left for school all rested/fueled and ready to go. Getting back from school, you had something to eat and then went out to play with your friends until 6pm (or when it got dark). Washup after play and hit homework from 7pm onwards. Dinner around 8:30/9pm and hit the bed around 10pm. I think a schedule like the above is just what is needed for today's times.

apple4ever 3y ago
That sounds perfect! That should be the schedule absolutely.
- rramadass 3y ago
  I think we need such a School/Job schedule for everybody. 11am-5pm (with two 30-min break in between) should be the max study/work hours. It gives us enough time for ourselves in a day to take care of all other things like family time/recreation/sports/etc. This is even more important today because we have so many things (distractions and otherwise) that demand our time. A lot of illnesses due to poor lifestyles and bad Work-Life balance would simply disappear and we would all be healthier and happier.

BlackLotus89 3y ago

>=9h of sleep is imho too much. Regarding sleep there is much contradicting research and books [0], but most stuff I read (not citing anything) points to 7-8h as a sweet spot and some doctors say that some people need less sleep for reasons (tm). Anyway back to my point: A graph on teen sleep showing 9 or more hours in percent is a bad proof of worse sleep schedules in teens since imho more than 9 hours of sleep could be bad for you as well... [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26684519 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26684519

bleep_bloop 3y ago
I mean, you can very easily google and see there is scientific consensus that teenagers require more than 8hrs of sleep, with 9 or 10 being optimal although there will always be outliers. the 7-8 you reference is for adults 25yrs+. As a general rule humans require less sleep the older they get.

costanzaDynasty 3y ago

I would say that any solution to solving the American Educational system should start with a dramatic reduction in child care costs. Also were I trying to solve public education, I would give more weight to people who have actually gone to public schools.