Video Games And Social Media Hurt Teens' Sleep, Study Says

(Reuters Health) - Teens who play video games before bedtime go to bed later and those who use online social media take longer to fall asleep, according to a recent study. These technology-related behaviors were tied to shorter and poorer sleep for teens on school days and even on vacation, while kids who stuck to non-tech behaviors like spending time with family before bed tended to get more sleep. "The effects of technology and video gaming on sleep have previously been reported, so we were not surprised to see that video gaming before bed was associated with later bedtime and shorter sleep duration," said senior author Bei Bei, of Monash University and the University of Melbourne in Australia. But this study also accounted for kids' "chronotype" - whether they tend to be more alert at night or in the morning - Bei said. "We were able to see whether some behaviors had an effect on adolescents' sleep beyond their chronotype," she told Reuters Health by email. "The only technology that had such an effect was video gaming." Teens may be engaging in some activities because they are not yet sleepy, and they do so to pass time until they feel like going to sleep, she noted. "This highlights that biological factors such as natural delay in body clock, and having to get up early for school, have much stronger effects on adolescents' sleep than technology itself," Bei said. The researchers recruited 146 adolescents in Melbourne who wore activity monitors for the last week of a schoo...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news