Increased Smartphone Screen-Time Is Associated With Lower Sleep Quality, Says Study (medicalxpress.com) 61
A new study from the University of California is the latest to show that increased smartphone screen-time can lower one's quality of sleep, which can lead to various negative health conditions such as obesity, diabetes and depression. Medical Xpress reports: Christensen and colleagues sought to test the hypothesis that increased screen-time may be associated with poor sleep by analyzing data from 653 adult individuals across the United States participating in the Health eHeart Study. Participants installed a smartphone application which recorded their screen-time, defined as the number of minutes in each hour that the screen was turned on, over a 30-day period. They also recorded their sleeping hours and sleep quality. The researchers found that each participant totaled an average of 38.4 hours over this period, with smartphones being activated on average for 3.7 minutes in each hour. Longer average screen-time was associated with poor sleep quality and less sleep overall, particularly when smartphones were used near participants' bedtime. The authors state that their study is the first to measure smartphone exposure prospectively, but caution that the study also had some important limitations, including the self-selection of study participants and self-reporting of data. The study has been published in the journal PLOS ONE.
Get with the times (Score:5, Funny)
I don't need sleep, I have an app do it.
F'ing correlation is not causation! (Score:3)
Post hoc ergo propter hoc!
Nothing in the article says screen time can lower one's quality of sleep!! That is entirely the hasty conclusion of the editor here.
Perhaps people who are up with isomnia turn to their phones?!?
Re: Get with the times (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the problem with this world is people wanting everything to be fixed for them by a pill, a service, an app or a politician.
Take responsibility for your own life and good health.
Fix broken stuff.
Cook your own food.
Keep learning.
Don't rely on external factors to fix your broken life and bad habits.
Now help others to do the same.
(Add a blurry Instagram photo for a background and we're done.)
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Actually, I think I'm gonna skip #5 and wait for someone else to get to #6.
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I have several problems that are partly fixed with pills and other medical technology, which would be real problems if I manned up and turned to self-reliance like you seem to be suggesting. I rely on external factors to fix stuff in me that's broken because I bloody have to. Get to be old enough, and you'll do the exact same thing without a second thought, or you'll probably get unnecessarily crippled and die early. Taking responsibility means relying on pills and services. My memory isn't quite what
Post hoc ergo propter hoc (Score:5, Insightful)
Meaning if people have a poor night's sleep, they may be spending more time on their phone BECAUSE THEY ARE AWAKE.
I wonder how much these geniuses spent to work out yet another statement of the bleeding obvious?
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Yeah, not impressed by this study. With this sort of approach it's hard to disentangle the various possible causes and effects. For example, people who spend longer on line may have more stuff going through their minds or are people who find it difficult to switch off, which affects their sleep pattern. I know that was one of the causes of my life long insomnia.
There have been much better studies demonstrating the effect of artificial light on sleep patterns. We know that blue light in particular seems to a
Re: Post hoc ergo propter hoc (Score:2)
honk if you're reading this in your twentieth hour of wakefulness, tho
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Yes, the study has its limitations. I applaud those conducting it for clearly stating those limitations. Its refreshing to see as so often they are not even mentioned or buried deep in the details under misleading headlines. Just stating those limitations makes this better science, IMHO, than many of the crap reports we see here on /.
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I wonder how much these geniuses spent to work out yet another statement of the bleeding obvious?
Meh. Lots of what is "bleeding obvious" turns out to be untrue. It's worth doing a study to check whether or not what seems obvious is actually the case.
smartphones? (Score:2)
Good night everyone.
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Who wants a smartphone that's been in a 'gina anyway?
New study shows increased open book time... (Score:1)
This just in: Insomniacs do more things with the things they own when they can't sleep.
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Poor sleep has been scientifically linked to increased creativity. There again, it's also linked to shorter lifespan.
Write bad code, get some sleep. (if you can)
Anecdotal (Score:4, Interesting)
During some health/hormonal issues I started paying attention to my sleep too. I absolutely feel it is vital to being productive. (Everybody's mileage may vary, obviously.)
I've become a big fan of screen reddening apps, incandescent/warm-white light sources, and wearing yellow/orange glasses some hours before bedtime - all the general melatonin-killing blue light avoidance being punted for years now.
What people do seem to often miss however, is the thing about timing. Melatonin is produced only for a certain window period during the early evening. Trudging on through that window period by forcing yourself to stay awake, makes me unable to fall asleep later on, no matter how tired. So no late-night reading or surfing past bedtime, no matter how thrilling the novel or how .... uhmmm... interesting american election memes, how compelling the conversation, or how urgent the deadline. The corollary of this is that one has to work out a good bed-time routine and stick to it 7 days a week.
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I have a C-PAP machine to help me sleep. When I turn it on or off, there's a bright white screen that lights up for a few minutes. Sometimes when I can't sleep I stop to appreciate the irony.
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I've set up Phillips Hue (not hacked yet) to force this behavior in my house. In the evenings they come on automatically as it gets dark, and throughout the evening they sunset, getting lower and redder as it gets later. Near bedtime they hit a dim reddish-purple to mimic an hour or two past sundown, deep purple, and out. About 30 minutes before I wake up they come on as purple-red, transition through reddish about the time the alarm goes off, have hit daytime yellow-blue-white by the time I'm eating breakf
I wonder (Score:2)
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I don't know about this study, but I've seen articles in the past linking the light from monitors being bad for sleep.
Supposedly, the theory goes that bluish lights are associated with the brain with early morning, and waking up. (light from the sun has more blue reaching us in the morning). Light in the evening has more red/yellow in it.
Light from monitors, phones, tablets, etc supposedly contains more light in the blue light than is conducive to our brains thinking it is night time.
That's the theory; wh
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e mail marketing (Score:1)
of course the causation runs both directions (Score:2)
Of course the causation runs in both directions here.
It's likely that poor sleep leads to poorer function; it's likely that poorer function leads to stress, anxiety, and more screen time; and its likely that this in turns contributes to poor sleep. All three "likelies" have support within the existing literature.
Which doesn't stop a likely threesome from coming out upside down.
The next study requires an even larger budget. But first, you're probably going to do a cheap study to at least suggest that the t
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Cyclical. I'm depressed because I stare at my phone; which makes me want to stare at my phone because I'm depressed. Only the Chinese can save me by taking out our satellites.
Averages (Score:2)
They give the observed averages, but nothing about how it varies from person to person, or with usage habits. Like a reading with unspecified error.
LCD TVs (Score:2)
Blue light is bad (Score:2)
Not new information..? (Score:2)
FTA:
...particularly when smartphones were used near participants' bedtime.
Uh, yeah. That information has been known for decades. The amount of brain activity, light color and intensity, and distance of device from sleeping space (disassociation of device activity with sleep area) are known causes of trouble getting to sleep and maintaining a healthy sleep pattern. Unsure what this is supposed to be telling us that was previously unknown.
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Damnit. Forgot to mention that this is previously from television. Smartphones aren't much different other than using interactive body motion in coordination with perception and processing. That makes them kind of worse.
An hour of sleep per night? (Score:2)
no way (Score:2)
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Stop using your iPhone and go to sleep. Send from my iPhone, 3:24am .