Sleep Deprivation Lowers School Achievement In Children 272
New submitter josedu writes:"Sleep deprivation is a great, hidden problem that afflicts a great percentage of children in affluent countries. About 73% of 9- and 10-year-old children in the U.S. are sleep deprived, as are 80% of 13- and 14-year-olds. The new study thinks this is linked to the increased access to devices such as mobile phones and laptops late at night. One of the researchers put it very simply: 'Our data show that across countries internationally, on average, children who have more sleep achieve higher in maths, science and reading.' This disruption is also causing schools to dumb-down their instruction to accomodate the reduced capacity of these kids. Thus, even the kids who are getting enough sleep will suffer. The long-term impact of sleep deprivation on nationwide education levels is enormous."
Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, I'm impressed. (Score:5, Insightful)
They managed to reproduce results fifteen or twenty years, and offer a stupid interpretation. Not bad!
The sleep-deprivation thing is well known, and not new. However, there's nothing tying it to "mobile devices". Rather, there's strong evidence that teenagers tend to have a circadian rhythm which favors being up later and not getting up that early. Schools have historically shoved their schedules extra-early so that extracurricular events like sports can occur before the sun goes down, but after school. Last time I heard about this, a school district had tried simply moving the high school day an hour later, and gotten a very noticable improvement in basically every measure of achievement available to them.
Now that I'm an adult, I sleep until I feel like getting up, and if I'm up a bit late, fine. I pretty much wake up between 11 and noon, and I work "late" most nights... But I get a heck of a lot more done, and a lot better, than I did when I was trying to work 9-5.
duh research (Score:2, Insightful)
while it might be "duh", government agencies, et al, won't respond to anecdotal stories about the effects of sleep deprivation. They need data to back it.
There are many other "duh" topics, but no one ever bothers to actually study it. And for the ones who do, regular folks aren't surprised at the answer and wonder why the govt. is funding such "obvious" research.
Well, analyzing "duh" data is tedious. And hard to do without preconceived bias.
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So? Public schools are garbage. (Score:5, Insightful)
The beauty of it is that they will grow up to have kids of their own and will do an even sorrier job of raising them than their parents did with them. It's like watching water flow down a drain. Thank God for immigration. Without it the US would be doomed. In particular the oriental immigrants seem to do well due no doubt to actually having a solid family oriented culture. Here in the US most kids seemed to be raised by electronic devices.
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure circadian rhythms don't work like that.
here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Biological_clock_human.svg [wikipedia.org]
Re:Slashdot Theorem (Score:5, Insightful)
When the problem predates the technology (or at least the wide adoption of the technology), it's pretty unlikely that the technology is the primary problem. It may be aggravating things, but the root cause is somewhere else.
Re:Wow, I'm impressed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Schools have historically shoved their schedules extra-early so that extracurricular events like sports can occur before the sun goes down, but after school.
Solution, abolish sports. You go to school to learn. You can play with your balls on your own time.
Re: Let me be the first to say... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Sorry boss, I like to stay up late"?
It's not a problem for you, so it's not a problem? This may come as an amazing shock to you but not everyone can sleep at will. Not everyone can choose when to sleep. Going to be earlier for you lets you go to sleep earlier? Great for you. Not everyone is exactly like you.
Quite a few people are at the mercy of their circadian rhythms, and nothing short of addictive sleep aids will cause them to fall asleep earlier. Youcan, of course, always set the alarm earlier. Thus a big problem with sleep deprivation.
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:3, Insightful)
Apparently my son has a /. account and just modded me 'Troll'.
Of course, that must be what happened. The fact that you smugly oversimplified a complex, nuanced issue in order to dismiss it and those adversely affected by it has absolutely nothing to do with it.
You remind me of certain extreme right-wingers who think the poor should just "get off their lazy asses", as if poverty was that simple.
Not everyone is "wired" to be a morning person. They are not naturally that way, but they find themselves in a world run by those who are. They go against their own nature trying to adapt to the world. It should surprise no one that this has a cost. The people surprised by this are people like you who think everybody is either just like themselves, or somehow defective. Expecting everybody to naturally be a morning person is like expecting every person on the Internet to be a telecommunications expert. It's inconsistent with observable reality.
What you are doing is like trying to force-fit a square peg into a round hole. When it doesn't work as well as you hoped, you are then telling the peg it's doing something wrong. That's why you are being smug or if you like, self-centered - I am not trying to name-call or hurl insults, it's just that what you are doing has a name. It's this black-and-white view of yours that was correctly recognized as "Troll". No one is accusing you of intentionally trolling, it's just the closest moderation fitting your post.
Unfortunatley you are now considered "insightful" by the more numerous small-minded mods who share your black-and-white view of how everyone else should be.
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:3, Insightful)
I tried my best to go to bed earlier.
Same here. My pet peeve is how morning people are often so sanctimonious about their preferred schedules, as though working at 7AM is somehow more virtuous than working at 7PM. Personally I think we should put all the morning people on the other side of the planet so they stop bothering us (bonus points if you force them to attend conference calls in the middle of their night).
Re:duh research (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry, what Government Agency needs to pay attention to this and what should they do about it?
Answer: None.
The only reason 9 and 10 year old children are sleep deprived is because of dumb shit parents who don't give a fuck about their kids.
And the only people who can do anything about it is the dumb shit parents.
The only reason 9 and 10 year old children are sleep deprived is because of dumb shit parents who don't give a fuck about their kids.
And the only people who can do anything about it is the dumb shit parents.
Thank GOD we have someone here who knows the answer and no doubt or exceptions!
I'm intrigued that you know everything - do you have a newsletter I can subscribe to?
So first, Every sleep child is apparently allowed to stay up as late as he or she wants because those parents don't "give a fuck"?
Not a single school aged child has ever had to staye up late because a parent was out working and they had to baby sit. I babysat my little sister while my parents were working late. Making ends meet. Not because they didn't "give a fuck". Lot's of children get to do this. Not everything is as it was in the Brady Bunch.
Even my son while in high school was a part of the generation that got homework dumped on them. sometimes he'd be up until 11 or 12 at night doing it. In your world we made him do that homework because4 we didn't "give a fuck".
Kind sir, you are a person who only knows one answer and spouts it as if it is from God's lips to your ears, You are not anywhere near as smart as you think you are, you have a very narrow, and I suspect politically influnced viewpoint - although I doubt that you "give a fuck".
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure it's so parents have time to drop off their kids at school on the way to work.
Parents should not be taking their kids to school after the age of about 4 or 5.
It is one of the most ridiculous things to have happened during my lifetime. Kids should walk, cycle or get a bus (depending on distance). There is absolutely no advantage whatsoever in parents driving their kids to school. It makes the kids physically lazy and infantilises them. They have no freedom to play with friends on the way to school, or hang around afterwards talking, or explore on their own.
It's all part of society's destruction of childhood. Children go from toddler straight to whining entitled adolescent.