Sleeping is essential for mental and physical health but many adults and too many teenagers do not sleep enough and more and more people who use screens in bed are more and more, a habit that is associated with poor dream.
Today a study confirms it: Use a screen an hour in bed raises the risk of insomnia 59%which reduces sleep time in 24 minutes, according to a survey conducted to 45,202 young adults in Norway and published Monday in the Frontiers in Psychiatry scientific journal.
The study also points out that social networks are no more harmful than other activities in front of a screen.
“The type of activity in front of a screen does not seem to import as much as the total time in front of a screen in bed”, Says Gunnhild Johnsen Hjetland, of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health and Principal Author.
It is believed that the use of screens affects the dream in four ways: Notifications disturb sleep, screen time replaces sleep time, screen activities keep you awake by what takes more to fall asleep, and light exposure delays circadian rhythms.
“Sleep problems are very frequent among students and have significant implications for mental health, academic performance and general well -being, but previous studies have focused mainly on adolescents,” explains Hjetland.
Study of the use of screens
The researchers wanted to explore the relationship between screens and sleep patterns and, for this, they used the health and welfare survey of the students of 2022, a national representative study of Norwegian students (45,202 students of higher -time degrees full -time, between 18 and 28 years old).
First they asked the participants to say if they used screens after bedtime and for how long, then they were asked to specify for what they used them (see series or movies, games, social networks, navigate online, listen to audio such as podcasts or read material related to studies).
The participants also had to say at what time they used and lifted, how long they took to fall asleep, how often they had problems to fall asleep or to remain asleep, how often they felt sleepy during the day and how long their sleep problems persisted.
Insomnia was defined as problems for sleeping and daytime sleepiness at least three times a week for at least three months.
The team classified the answers into three categories: one in which the participants said they only used social networks, another in which the participants did not mention social networks and another in which the participants selected several activities, including social networks.
They discovered that increasing the screen time after bedtime increased the chances of suffering insomnia symptoms by 59% and reduced sleep duration in 24 minutes but the use of social networks was no more harmful than other activities in front of the screen.
There was no significant interaction between the time dedicated to the use of a screen and the choice of activity, which suggests that the activity itself did not affect the amount of time that people remained awake.
This indicates that the screens reduce sleep time because they move rest, not because they increase vigil: different activities would be expected to affect the vigil differently.
The authors of the study believe, however, that since the study focuses on a single culture, there could be notable differences in the relationship between the use of screens and the dream worldwide.
In addition, to compare the use of social networks with other activities on the screen, some activities that could have different effects on sleep – such as listening to music or playing – were grouped into a single category.
“This study cannot determine causality, for example, if the use of screens cause insomnia or if students with insomnia use the screens more”, Says Hjetland, and did not include physiological evaluations, which” could provide more precise data on sleep patterns, “he concludes.