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> challenged a group of Year 8 pupils to give up their smartphones completely for 21 days. It was not a ban during school. It was complete phone abstinence. Th

> challenged a group of Year 8 pupils to give up their smartphones completely for 21 days. It was not a ban during school. It was complete phone abstinence. The result was that the kids got an entire additional hour of sleep! Perhaps this could be replicated just by putting phones away at night.

toasterlovin 2y ago
I have a longstanding hunch that the whole “teenagers need more sleep” thing is greatly exaggerated and it’s just that teens just stay up too late because they’re extreme stimulation seekers. Phones have made things worse, but we’ve had TVs, etc for a long time.
- rrr_oh_man 2y ago
  Teenage dogs need more sleep, too. I think it’s a bit of both.
- boredatoms 2y ago
  Its having to get up before noon thats the true problem, they just live in a different timezone
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    I always laughed at the supposed benefit from moving high school start times an hour later with the claim that teens need more sleep. They'd need to move it three or four hours later; getting up at 8:00 instead of 7:00 is not a big difference when your body wants you to sleep for another three or four hours.
    - 1123581321 2y ago
      Was that based on anything? An hour of sleep is a big benefit. You’ll feel a big difference if you give yourself six instead of five hours of sleep, or seven instead of six. Sleeping too late in the day isn’t as high quality; sleep until 7am still is for most people. Students stay up late, but many aren’t regularly staying up past 12. Plus, we do have to compromise with teachers who’d like to have dinner.
    - atkailash 2y ago
      I had a counselor or whatever once tell me I needed to “become” a morning person Now I’m 40 and I still am more functional after 10am than any time before that. And I’ve worked jobs starting at 4am-6am for months but never quite got used to it
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - Spivak 2y ago
    Yep 4am—1pm was my sleep schedule when I was in high school outside of school. During school it was 1am—5am during the winter due to sports conditioning and 1am-6:00am spring/fall. That was the earliest I could push my bedtime and still fall asleep. I used to fall asleep standing in the shower. Do not miss it in the slightest. Every day is a good day to not be in high school.
- tomrod 2y ago
  Man, if my body was changing again so much that I was getting stretch marks, growing a few inches a quarter, and (for some) putting on 5s and 10s of pounds of muscle, fat, and bone, I'd imagine my metabolism would need sleep as well.
- _yb2s 2y ago
  It’s well documented that need for sleep continuously declines with age. However what you are saying is likely also true, which combine to make kids really sleep deprived.
  - pbhjpbhj 2y ago
    Until what age? I've always seemed to need a lot of sleep. I'm a night-owl. For about 1 month, a few years back, I suddenly started waking up early, like 6am (in Winter). Had a couple of hours before anyone else was up. It was great. I didn't plan it, it just happened. And as easily as it arrived, it departed. I've tried to forcibly repeat it, but I just wake and feel awful, am super sleepy and get nothing done. Wish there were a switch. I can go to bed at 8pm, get 12 hours of sleep and still feel awful in the morning. I'm middle-aged, fwiw.
    - _yb2s 2y ago
      Peoples sleep duration on average gradually and steadily declines from as much as 11-19 hours as an infant, down to 5-8 on average for 65+. There is no rapid sudden drop, and possibly no age where it stops going down either. However, peoples individual need for sleep varies substantially on top of that, and can go up or down based on a lot of other factors. Medications, mental health, sleep apnea, diet, exercise, etc. can influence your need for sleep and how restful the sleep you get is. If you're sleeping 12 hours and still feeling awful, there is likely something very wrong you need to look into. I'd go to a doctor and get a sleep study, but if nothing else you can get a logging pulse oximeter, and/or sleep tracker like an Oura ring. It is possible you are not really sleeping but having short waking events, and/or apnea events from sleep apnea that is keeping your sleep from being restful.
- Aurornis 2y ago
  Teenagers do need more sleep. They also naturally tend toward later hours. This phenomenon even extends to similar developmental phases in some other species. That said, the availability of artificial lighting, then the availability of TV, and now the availability of phones have made the problem exponentially worse by removing the natural boundaries that bracket out daytime hours. I have friends and family who are teachers. As they tell, there’s an obvious bimodal distribution where some kids are going to bed at reasonable times and others are bragging about staying up to completely unreasonable hours. It’s a badge of honor for some to barely sleep at night. Like most things it comes down to parental involvement. The gulf between students whose parents care and those who let their children do whatever they want is massive.
  - toasterlovin 2y ago
    Yeah, but kids in general need more sleep. Are teenagers peculiar among other age groups? My hunch is that they’re not with respect to how much sleep they need, but are with respect to how much sleep they get.
bawolff 2y ago
> Perhaps this could be replicated just by putting phones away at night. Sort of like how people addicted to gambling would probably save a lot of money if they had just a little more will power.
- lazyasciiart 2y ago
  Or if they just had parents controlling them?
  - Tempest1981 2y ago
    I read somewhere that being the only kid without smartphone access is worse (for mental health) than giving your kid a smartphone. I.e. there needs to be consensus among parents.
    - aziaziazi 2y ago
      Perhaps what relate the study kids was their school, which is probably already existing I guess ?
    - eimrine 2y ago
      > I read somewhere that being the only kid without smartphone access is worse (for mental health) than giving your kid a smartphone. What is definition of worse in context of mental health? Can free and open-source devices help or proprietary software is inevitable?
    - vaylian 2y ago
      I suppose that is because of social exclusion. If all the important things are coordinates online and in real-time, then those kids can't participate. Communicating with your peers is much harder when the peer's baseline is "I'll just write a chat message" and it would take considerably more effort to talk to the kid who doesn't have mobile internet access.
- lesuorac 2y ago
  Or C code wouldn't have any bugs if developers were more careful?
trogdor 2y ago
If you are saying that just based off of the linked article, I don’t think that is clear.
- phire 2y ago
  Seems clear enough to me: "challenged a group of Year 8 pupils to give up their smartphones completely for 21 days." I'm not sure how you can read "completely" as "only during school time"
  - _nivlac_ 2y ago
    I found it unclear because the title of the article and the title of the TV show imply it's only during school, but it's only the second paragraph that it mentions "completely". It seems to contradict the opening sentences.
    - phire 2y ago
      My rule of thumb: If the headline and the body contradict, always trust the body (or even better, the peer reviewed journal article). Never trust headlines, they are optimised for clicks, not accuracy. It's also common for headlines to be written by someone other than the article body, someone who potentially only skimmed the article, and changed based on A/B testing. And TV show titles.... basically useless.
    - sahmeepee 2y ago
      The advertising for this on TV was also confusing in this regard. It's only because most UK secondary schools already ban phone use in school time that (in context) it obviously means round-the-clock.
  - arrowsmith 2y ago
    Why does a group of Year 8 pupils (age 12-13) have smartphones in the first place? I don’t know what age I’m giving my son a smartphone but it’s sure as hell not as early as 12. “But my friends all have one”? Then I judge his friends’ parents.
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andai 2y ago
I did a project once where I put my phone away before bed (switched off and in another room) and kept it off for the first few hours of the day, along with my wifi router. I usually got so much done during that time that I'd prefer to keep them off for a few more hours, even after I was "allowed" to turn them back on.
- warner25 2y ago
  > along with my wifi router I'm all about eliminating phones, but I'm curious to know what you accomplished for several hours without network connectivity in general. Whether I've been working from home or in an office, a network outage basically meant taking the rest of the day off because nothing could actually get done.
  - LoganDark 2y ago
    > I'm curious to know what you accomplished for several hours without network connectivity in general. Making your bed, organizing your room, taking a shower / getting a haircut, doing laundry, whatever. You know, the stuff people tend to get behind on.
    - Aeolun 2y ago
      People get behind on taking a shower? Amongst that list it seems the only one you can’t skip out on. Unless you start putting on dirty laundry. That’s probably worse.
      - OJFord 2y ago
        Depends what you mean by 'get behind on' I guess? I'm a 'morning' showerer, because my hair looks insane before a shower, but if there's nothing to particularly make me need/want to look presentable (obviously I'm not properly dressed having not showered either) particularly early then yeah I can get behind on showering.
      - pbhjpbhj 2y ago
        It kinda blows my mind if not only have you never missed taking a shower but you can't even imagine a situation in which that mighty happen. That aside, people have depression, or no access to a shower, and so miss showering for weeks even. Amongst other reasons.
wraptile 2y ago
n of 8 is essentially meaningless tho
- rrr_oh_man 2y ago
  [flagged]
- shawabawa3 2y ago
  It's not n of 8. The article doesn't mention cohort size (year 8 is what 7th grade is called in the UK) Found another source that said n was 26
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jweir 2y ago
Our eldest child has a phone. But it has to be kept downstairs at night - no tech in the bedroom before bed. Hasn’t been a fight or a problem at all.
- jstummbillig 2y ago
  How old are they and since what age do they have the phone? What constitutes as before bed and at what age do you think you'll lift the no tech restriction entirely?
  - jweir 2y ago
    Daughter got her phone at 12, 7th grade. It was a Nokia but the thing broke so we broke and gave her an old iPhone. Before bed means before she starts getting ready for bed. The last question I don’t know.
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toasterlovin 2y ago

I have a longstanding hunch that the whole “teenagers need more sleep” thing is greatly exaggerated and it’s just that teens just stay up too late because they’re extreme stimulation seekers. Phones have made things worse, but we’ve had TVs, etc for a long time.

rrr_oh_man 2y ago
Teenage dogs need more sleep, too. I think it’s a bit of both.
boredatoms 2y ago
Its having to get up before noon thats the true problem, they just live in a different timezone
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  I always laughed at the supposed benefit from moving high school start times an hour later with the claim that teens need more sleep. They'd need to move it three or four hours later; getting up at 8:00 instead of 7:00 is not a big difference when your body wants you to sleep for another three or four hours.
  - 1123581321 2y ago
    Was that based on anything? An hour of sleep is a big benefit. You’ll feel a big difference if you give yourself six instead of five hours of sleep, or seven instead of six. Sleeping too late in the day isn’t as high quality; sleep until 7am still is for most people. Students stay up late, but many aren’t regularly staying up past 12. Plus, we do have to compromise with teachers who’d like to have dinner.
  - atkailash 2y ago
    I had a counselor or whatever once tell me I needed to “become” a morning person Now I’m 40 and I still am more functional after 10am than any time before that. And I’ve worked jobs starting at 4am-6am for months but never quite got used to it
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- Spivak 2y ago
  Yep 4am—1pm was my sleep schedule when I was in high school outside of school. During school it was 1am—5am during the winter due to sports conditioning and 1am-6:00am spring/fall. That was the earliest I could push my bedtime and still fall asleep. I used to fall asleep standing in the shower. Do not miss it in the slightest. Every day is a good day to not be in high school.
tomrod 2y ago
Man, if my body was changing again so much that I was getting stretch marks, growing a few inches a quarter, and (for some) putting on 5s and 10s of pounds of muscle, fat, and bone, I'd imagine my metabolism would need sleep as well.
_yb2s 2y ago
It’s well documented that need for sleep continuously declines with age. However what you are saying is likely also true, which combine to make kids really sleep deprived.
- pbhjpbhj 2y ago
  Until what age? I've always seemed to need a lot of sleep. I'm a night-owl. For about 1 month, a few years back, I suddenly started waking up early, like 6am (in Winter). Had a couple of hours before anyone else was up. It was great. I didn't plan it, it just happened. And as easily as it arrived, it departed. I've tried to forcibly repeat it, but I just wake and feel awful, am super sleepy and get nothing done. Wish there were a switch. I can go to bed at 8pm, get 12 hours of sleep and still feel awful in the morning. I'm middle-aged, fwiw.
  - _yb2s 2y ago
    Peoples sleep duration on average gradually and steadily declines from as much as 11-19 hours as an infant, down to 5-8 on average for 65+. There is no rapid sudden drop, and possibly no age where it stops going down either. However, peoples individual need for sleep varies substantially on top of that, and can go up or down based on a lot of other factors. Medications, mental health, sleep apnea, diet, exercise, etc. can influence your need for sleep and how restful the sleep you get is. If you're sleeping 12 hours and still feeling awful, there is likely something very wrong you need to look into. I'd go to a doctor and get a sleep study, but if nothing else you can get a logging pulse oximeter, and/or sleep tracker like an Oura ring. It is possible you are not really sleeping but having short waking events, and/or apnea events from sleep apnea that is keeping your sleep from being restful.
Aurornis 2y ago
Teenagers do need more sleep. They also naturally tend toward later hours. This phenomenon even extends to similar developmental phases in some other species. That said, the availability of artificial lighting, then the availability of TV, and now the availability of phones have made the problem exponentially worse by removing the natural boundaries that bracket out daytime hours. I have friends and family who are teachers. As they tell, there’s an obvious bimodal distribution where some kids are going to bed at reasonable times and others are bragging about staying up to completely unreasonable hours. It’s a badge of honor for some to barely sleep at night. Like most things it comes down to parental involvement. The gulf between students whose parents care and those who let their children do whatever they want is massive.
- toasterlovin 2y ago
  Yeah, but kids in general need more sleep. Are teenagers peculiar among other age groups? My hunch is that they’re not with respect to how much sleep they need, but are with respect to how much sleep they get.

bawolff 2y ago

> Perhaps this could be replicated just by putting phones away at night. Sort of like how people addicted to gambling would probably save a lot of money if they had just a little more will power.

lazyasciiart 2y ago
Or if they just had parents controlling them?
- Tempest1981 2y ago
  I read somewhere that being the only kid without smartphone access is worse (for mental health) than giving your kid a smartphone. I.e. there needs to be consensus among parents.
  - aziaziazi 2y ago
    Perhaps what relate the study kids was their school, which is probably already existing I guess ?
  - eimrine 2y ago
    > I read somewhere that being the only kid without smartphone access is worse (for mental health) than giving your kid a smartphone. What is definition of worse in context of mental health? Can free and open-source devices help or proprietary software is inevitable?
  - vaylian 2y ago
    I suppose that is because of social exclusion. If all the important things are coordinates online and in real-time, then those kids can't participate. Communicating with your peers is much harder when the peer's baseline is "I'll just write a chat message" and it would take considerably more effort to talk to the kid who doesn't have mobile internet access.
lesuorac 2y ago
Or C code wouldn't have any bugs if developers were more careful?

trogdor 2y ago

If you are saying that just based off of the linked article, I don’t think that is clear.

phire 2y ago
Seems clear enough to me: "challenged a group of Year 8 pupils to give up their smartphones completely for 21 days." I'm not sure how you can read "completely" as "only during school time"
- _nivlac_ 2y ago
  I found it unclear because the title of the article and the title of the TV show imply it's only during school, but it's only the second paragraph that it mentions "completely". It seems to contradict the opening sentences.
  - phire 2y ago
    My rule of thumb: If the headline and the body contradict, always trust the body (or even better, the peer reviewed journal article). Never trust headlines, they are optimised for clicks, not accuracy. It's also common for headlines to be written by someone other than the article body, someone who potentially only skimmed the article, and changed based on A/B testing. And TV show titles.... basically useless.
  - sahmeepee 2y ago
    The advertising for this on TV was also confusing in this regard. It's only because most UK secondary schools already ban phone use in school time that (in context) it obviously means round-the-clock.
- arrowsmith 2y ago
  Why does a group of Year 8 pupils (age 12-13) have smartphones in the first place? I don’t know what age I’m giving my son a smartphone but it’s sure as hell not as early as 12. “But my friends all have one”? Then I judge his friends’ parents.

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andai 2y ago

I did a project once where I put my phone away before bed (switched off and in another room) and kept it off for the first few hours of the day, along with my wifi router. I usually got so much done during that time that I'd prefer to keep them off for a few more hours, even after I was "allowed" to turn them back on.

warner25 2y ago
> along with my wifi router I'm all about eliminating phones, but I'm curious to know what you accomplished for several hours without network connectivity in general. Whether I've been working from home or in an office, a network outage basically meant taking the rest of the day off because nothing could actually get done.
- LoganDark 2y ago
  > I'm curious to know what you accomplished for several hours without network connectivity in general. Making your bed, organizing your room, taking a shower / getting a haircut, doing laundry, whatever. You know, the stuff people tend to get behind on.
  - Aeolun 2y ago
    People get behind on taking a shower? Amongst that list it seems the only one you can’t skip out on. Unless you start putting on dirty laundry. That’s probably worse.
    - OJFord 2y ago
      Depends what you mean by 'get behind on' I guess? I'm a 'morning' showerer, because my hair looks insane before a shower, but if there's nothing to particularly make me need/want to look presentable (obviously I'm not properly dressed having not showered either) particularly early then yeah I can get behind on showering.
    - pbhjpbhj 2y ago
      It kinda blows my mind if not only have you never missed taking a shower but you can't even imagine a situation in which that mighty happen. That aside, people have depression, or no access to a shower, and so miss showering for weeks even. Amongst other reasons.

wraptile 2y ago

n of 8 is essentially meaningless tho

rrr_oh_man 2y ago
[flagged]
shawabawa3 2y ago
It's not n of 8. The article doesn't mention cohort size (year 8 is what 7th grade is called in the UK) Found another source that said n was 26

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

jweir 2y ago

Our eldest child has a phone. But it has to be kept downstairs at night - no tech in the bedroom before bed. Hasn’t been a fight or a problem at all.

jstummbillig 2y ago
How old are they and since what age do they have the phone? What constitutes as before bed and at what age do you think you'll lift the no tech restriction entirely?
- jweir 2y ago
  Daughter got her phone at 12, 7th grade. It was a Nokia but the thing broke so we broke and gave her an old iPhone. Before bed means before she starts getting ready for bed. The last question I don’t know.

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