A new study of sleep patterns in UK adolescents has found a clear link between social media use and less healthy sleep patterns, particularly staying up too late in the evening.
The possible impact of screen time and social media use on adolescent health has received a lot of attention recently, but there is a shortage of scientific evidence to inform potential concerns.
Researcher Holly Scott at the University of Glasgow, UK, and colleagues looked at the impact on sleep of social media use, “which – despite often being overlooked in public health messages and education interventions – is increasingly recognised as a key component of wider health and well-being,” they write in today’s (23 October) BMJ Open.
They add: “Insufficient sleep is highly prevalent in this age group and has implications for mental health, obesity, academic performance and safety.”
The group used figures on 11,872 adolescents aged 13 to 15 years, from the national Millennium Cohort Study.
Participants were categorised into either low social media users (less than one hour per day), medium (one to below three hours), high (three to less than five hours), and very high (five hours or more). Girls tended to spend more time on social media than boys.
The authors report: “Heavier social media use was associated with poorer sleep patterns. For example, very high social media users were more likely than comparable average users to report late sleep onset and wake times on school days and trouble falling back asleep after night-time awakening.
They write: “Sleep education and interventions can focus on supporting young people to balance online interactions with an appropriate sleep schedule that allows sufficient sleep on school nights.”
Scott, H. et al. Social media use and adolescent sleep patterns: cross-sectional findings from the UK millennium cohort study. BMJ Open 23 October 2019; doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2019-031161
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/lookup/doi/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-031161
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