Screen use in bed associated with delayed sleep, psychological distress in children, teens
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Key takeaways:
- Children used screens for an average of 56 minutes before bedtime and for 16 minutes while in bed.
- Overall, 12% to 17% of children and adolescents reported experiencing cyberbullying.
Although screen use before bedtime did not affect sleep onset or duration in children, using screens in bed not only impacted sleep quality but was also associated with cyberbullying and psychological distress, research showed.
Contrary to previous research suggesting daytime screen use affected children’s sleep, Rachael W. Taylor, PhD, research professor and head of the department of medicine at University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, and colleagues did not find that association in a small cohort study published in JAMA Pediatrics.
Taylor and colleagues gathered screen use and sleep data from 79 youths (40.5% girls; mean age, 12.9 years; standard deviation [SD], 1.1 years) over 8 days. They objectively collected screen use information with wearable and stationary cameras from 2 hours before participants’ bedtime until they woke up in the morning. The participants wore accelerometers to track their sleep duration.
Before bedtime, participants used screens for an average of 56 minutes (SD, 25 minutes), which varied by 27 minutes (SD, 11 minutes) from night to night. They spent an average of 29 minutes (SD, 28 minutes) in bed before attempting to sleep the first time and used their devices for an average of 16 minutes (SD, 26 minutes) while in bed.
“Once you see how adolescents use their screens, you — like us — will think it impossible for adolescents to accurately measure their screen time with questionnaires,” Taylor said. “It changes rapidly, they often use more than one device or do more than one activity on the same device, and it is fast.”
Screens delayed sleep ‘minute for minute’
Screen use before bedtime had no association with sleep duration or quality, the researchers found.
“We were surprised in some ways to see that screen time before getting into bed did not seem to have much effect on adolescent sleep — even the interactive activities like gaming and multitasking,” Taylor said.
However, screen use in bed delayed sleep almost minute for minute, Taylor said. Every 10 minutes of interactive screen use — like gaming, messaging or multitasking — delayed sleep by 10 minutes. Participants fell asleep an average of 35 minutes (95% CI, 16-54) later on nights they engaged in interactive screen use compared with nights without. Passive screen use — like watching, listening or reading — delayed sleep onset by 32 minutes (95% CI, 16-48) compared with nights without it, and social media use delayed sleep onset by 38 minutes (95% CI, 15-60 minutes) compared with nights when participants were not using social media.
Psychological effects of nighttime phone use
Nighttime phone use is associated with cyberbullying and psychological distress in children, according to an Australian study published in Adolescents.
“This study included a very large number of children aged 7 to 19 years across all states and territories in Australia,” Stephanie Centofanti, PhD, online course facilitator for the bachelor of psychological science and sociology at the University of South Australia in Adelaide, South Australia, told Healio. “It provides a snapshot of the state of cyberbullying, mental distress, sleep and phone use in children and confirms that overnight phone use is a common phenomenon, which may widen the window of opportunity for bullying to occur.”
Centofanti and colleagues surveyed 22,337 children aged 7 to 11 years (50.2% girls) and 31,397 children and young adults aged 12 to 19 years (60.3% girls) about late-night phone use, sleep health, cyberbullying and psychological distress.
One in three children (34%) in primary school reported using their phone at nighttime at least once a week, and two-thirds of secondary-school-aged girls (66%) and boys (58%) reported nighttime phone use.
“A high proportion of teens reported being on their phones overnight (between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m.),” Centofanti said. “We know from previous research that a lot of teens stay up late on their phones before falling asleep, but it seems that many are actually waking up throughout the night to use their phones.”
More primary school boys reported cyberbullying than girls (17% vs. 12%), whereas more secondary school girls reported cyberbullying compared with boys (15% vs. 14%).
One in five (20%) primary school-aged children experienced moderate to severe psychological distress. Among secondary school-aged children, 23% of boys reported psychological distress compared with 38% of girls.
The researchers calculated the interaction between each variable and found that nighttime phone use and cyberbullying were associated with significantly higher rates of psychological distress and significantly lower rates of obtaining 8 hours of sleep every night (P < .001).
“The simplest recommendation might be to keep devices out of the bed or bedroom,” Taylor said. “Perhaps we can save some potential conflict if we don’t stress so much about what they’re doing on their screens before bed — just once they get in.”
References:
- Brosnan B, et al. JAMA Pediatr. 2024;doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2024.2914.
- Centofanti S, et al. Adolescents. 2024;doi:10.3390/adolescents4030025.
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