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Study Shows Technology May Inhibit Good Sleep
An anonymous reader points out a study by the National Sleep Foundation which looked at the relationship between sleep habits and the use of electronic communications tech in the hour before bedtime. Dr. Michael Grasidar of Flinders University said, "My research compares how technologies that are ‘passively received' such as TVs and music versus those with ‘interactive' properties like video games, cell phones and the Internet may affect the brain differently. The hypothesis is that the latter devices are more alerting and disrupt the sleep-onset process." The study found that people who frequently send text messages or use their laptops before bed were less likely to report getting a good night's sleep (PDF) than people who don't. "While these technologies are commonplace, it is clear that we have a lot more to learn about the appropriate use and design of this technology to complement good sleep habits," said the NSF's David Cloud.
I blame Hulu and Netflix.
vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
Funny to read a scientist referring to sittin' on the couch vegging on TV as, basically, the good ol' days.
And I'm reading Slashdot.
Case closed.
catch (HumourFailureException e) { e.user.send("You, sir, are a humourless idiot."); }
So, they're just now figuring out that something interactive - that requires your thoughts and input - puts you in a wakeful state? While, say, TV on the other hand puts you to sleep - you know, like a "couch potato".
There's a reason I dislike non-interactive entertainment, I'm not a vegetable.
I cant drink coffee, watch tv, surf on my iPad, go for a walk, take a bath. Now what am i supposed to do for the last hour? Sit in a chair and stare at the wall?
Slashdot's been pretty damn good a putting my to sleep the last few years...
Damn right I'll get sleep, there won't be anything else to do!
The article refers to a poll, not an experiment. Could it be that those who have trouble sleeping are more likely to engage in interactive entertainment?
Personally, I very, very rarely have trouble sleeping. I usually find myself getting too tired for interactive entertainment about an hour before I want to sleep. I'd *love* to be able to continue playing video games up until lights out, but I just don't have the energy. Those who have lots of energy will keep playing/blogging/hacking.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
This discovery simply extends the idea that restful activities like reading promote sleep better than do physically and mentally demanding activities like heavy exercise. Of course, working yourself to (physical and mental) exhaustion may have the same effect as lying in bed and reading a book.
I happen to love being "on" as much as possible - in an aware state, perceiving as much as possible, living as much as I can with my limited lifespan.
So much so, that I tend to almost always avoid anything that will interrupt this process, like mind-altering substances from alcohol to coffee.
I can certainly appreciate the need for sleep to recuperate, and silence as time to reflect - but I don't see mental stimulation as some venal sin, or carving the occasional slice of time away from 8-hour sleep blocks as destructive act.
You only get so much life - sleep is mostly just what I have to do in order to get to more awareness - the little slices of death that remind us how limited our time is.
Ryan Fenton
I use f.lux it the placebo effect is working
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
...listening to the radio than playing a video game.
Wow. Who'd a thunk it.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
this study is worthless. technology in and of itself has nothing to do with inhibition of sleep. it's obvious that ANY **activity** that 'demands' attention will keep your brain active longer to a point where you ignore / forget about sleep.
most of us have experienced this playing games late into the night and the next morning, where you're focusing so much on an activity such as repeatedly seeking, focusing on once found, and finally shooting an enemy. or, more infamously, focusing on that "one more turn" in civilization or a similar game where there are a multitude of various actions to take to further your goals.
but you can say the same about someone in, say, a war zone. they would certainly 'forget' about sleep if a bunch of bullets are flying around, demanding that they stay alert if they want to live. also, even if you're tired, if you suddenly start playing a sport that's constantly active, like soccer (as opposed to slow paced baseball), then you'll focus your attention on tracking the movement of the ball and other players, and as a bonus the adrenalin kicks in. this all would continue until your body just "ran out of fuel" and you "crash" / pass-out rather than drift off slowly into sleep.
so where technology these days comes into play is simply that it provides more options for active participation rather than passiveness like television does. "One more instant message", "One more article (on /. , digg, reddit, whatever)", "One more comment in my favorite forum", "One more post to read / write on Facebook". but then you could say the same about the stereotypical teenage girl on the telephone late at night talking to her best friend about boys, or clothes, or whatever, like we did before all this fancy tech came along and became mainstream.
so what did this "researcher" actually "discover"? that people can lose track of time and forget / ignore being tired because they are engaged in an activity. and why did they not sleep "well"? probably because they simply didn't get ENOUGH sleep because they had to get up and go to work / school the next morning, OR, the activity itself (tech related or not) keeps playing in the mind after sleep, which is also not restful. DUH. so yeah, thanks captain obvious for that brilliant study of something we already knew.
Good job I have Porphyria because I don't even have a "Normal" sleep schedule, it's all over the map.
I don't work in an office (basically impossible with severe Porphyria), so people are always asking me when I sleep because I send business emails 24/7, and am lucky to get a 5 hour night (starting about 4 or 5 am).
Thank goodness for 24/7 Tech accessibility!
I am CONSTANTLY fixing my sleep schedule, I have taken numerous different sleeping medications, but to be honest no matter what even after a ton of melatonin, i am still up and online, I know it has to do with having so much information so readily available, but it also probably has another type of sleeping disorder.
TL;DR There are too many factors.
-Noc
The only technology that's ever interfered with my sleep is my neighbour's sub-woofer.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
If one's 'fight-or-flight' response is being constantly activated, it'd be hard to sleep.
Do you meditate or relax your body daily?
I used to have a ton of trouble falling asleep, but now I'm a consistent 12am->7:30am sleeper.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
I usually go to bed at around midnight. I noticed that if I worked late (right up until the point I went to bed) or played PC games until around the same time, I would simply be too wired to go to bed and just fall asleep.
Watching TV didn't seem to have the same effect though; I could stay up late watching the box and then walk into the bedroom and pretty much faceplant and sleep immediately.
I now try to have the PC off by 10pm to stop me getting tempted to just check one more email or have one last round of StarCraft 2, because of the effect it has on my ability to get to sleep easily at my preferred sleeping time.
I have a sleeping disorder. I take meds for it which can actually cause insomnia. Don't ask, it doesn't make any bleepin' sense.
Anyways, I found that working on my computer or watching TV - which BTW I don't always do before sleeping - make it difficult to go to sleep. I light emitted from the screen is maybe 25% of the problem. I find if I'm computing or watching TV before going to sleep my mind is too engaged in this activity it makes it difficult to shut down my brain and be able to fall asleep.
Despite the studies, and as a tech guy and a lifetime insomniac I can say from experience that the -reasons- for the use can make a huge difference. This is true of books and older "tech" too. A exciting story on the written page that gets you thinking isn't going to put you to sleep near as well as something that's quiet and calming. I find surfing the web doesn't bother what sleep pattern I have much. On the other hand I avoid news sites like the plague for the 3-4 hours before bed as I know there's bound to be something that will just irritate me and keep me awake.
One hour before my bedtime, I turn off my laptop, smartphone, and TV
i thought the military proved a long time ago that people only need 4 hours sleep every 25 hours... And that we are addicted to sleep (for a lack of media?)
So the people who are active, thinking about things and taking part in activities are less likely to doze off than the lethargic couch-potato type?
...my common sense is tingling.
Seriously! "Our family is so much cloud visionaries that we MADE IT OUR NAME."
Who did what now?
I recall reading some years ago that it's preferable to watch television or listen to radio in the hour before sleep than to read a book or solve crossword puzzles, for similar reasons to those stated in the summary. It's a pity the poll didn't include more traditional "interactive" media as well.
That's hilarious. Just the other morning, my wife came out as I was playing Starcraft 2 and reminded me that it was 2:30am and I should be getting some sleep. I guess technology *does* inhibit sleep.
technologies that are 'passively received' such as TVs
Have gnu, will travel.
And I get woken up during the daytime by telemarketing robocalls
I've started doing this again, and I find that it helps a great deal, even if it's techie stuff.
Really, _especially_ if it's techie stuff.
Absolute statements are never true
I used to watch movies with explicit sexual content before going to bed and had a lot of trouble. Ever since I switched to reading Slashdot before turning out the light, it's been no problem.
I've had sleeping issues since high school about 10 years ago. Typically, I can't sleep until about 3 AM, and only get about 4 hours of solid rest. After that, I doze in and out of sleep for a couple hours.
I was in Africa for a bit, and regularly had no power - which meant no laptop. My sleep pattern improved drastically during those periods of time. However, the instant power was back I was using the laptop at night again. Immediately, the sleep issues returned. (Note that we did have a generator, so we still had lights and some appliances on when the power was out, but in general avoided turning anything unnecessary on unless we absolutely needed them, like computers).
I've reproduced the same behaviour in myself now that I'm in America. Cut out the laptop at night - start sleeping great in a few days. Re-introduce it: really, really rough week.
The people who are so obsessed with twitter and facebook that they bring the laptops to bed, can't get to sleep as well as normal well adjusted people who just watch a little TV before bed. Guess which group also has a better relationship with their spouses?
We all know TV is bad for you because it turns you into a lazy, passive couch potato. And now video games, cell phones and the Internet are bad for you because they ...don't.
Liberty in your lifetime
It's midnight and I'm on slashdot... oh... I get it....
I literally sleep in front of my computer. I sleep on a sleeping bag on the carpeted floor in front of two laptops attached to a 23" monitor between them. I wake up quite often at 3AM. Sleep is a problem, but I never really attributed it to the equipment. I turn off the monitors, put the laptop displays to sleep, and they don't beep during the night.
OK, it's not the technology, it's the interactivity. The article makes that clear. I'm surprised that this is considered news, though. It's the reason I can sleep after cycling but not after fencing.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Technology is amazing!
It's the goddamn TVTropes that inhibits my good sleep...
Slashdot: Where opinions are just opinions until you have mod points.
Sleep is so overrated. ZzzzZzzz... :P
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-477733/Sleepy-Spend-time-internet-watching-TV-say-scientists.html and http://aqfl.net/node/5268 (my poll). :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Wouldn't playing a good old fashioned game of Chess do the same thing? Why blame it on the electronic stuff when there are plenty of non-electronic things that can engage the mind.
I find that if either the TV or the computer has something interesting I'm locked in. That's why i call them the devil box and satan screen. oooo! Navy Seals!
I never get to sleep.
Checks out as far as I can tell.
Good sleep is an art and you can help achieve this goal:
* cold-foam pre-formed pillow
* nice, warm and cozy blanket
* skin-friendly sheets
* the blanket must be at 30 cm longer than you are tall
* optionally cold-foam pre-formed sleeping mask
The next step is an even more awesome cold-foam mattress than the one I have, already.
Inform yourself and buy those within a month. You will love it.
when there is so much to read??
The following material should be a compulsory read for all university students (and some slashdot commenters). http://xkcd.com/552/ How about: busy and/or stressed people have worse nights and also work more in the evening. One is not necessarily the cause for the other.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Ive always though that the light from these screens caused my brain to clamp down on melatonin levels and thus making me awake.
If this is true, why do I often nod off at the keyboard at work.
Most of the pages in the linked PDF are literally unreadable.
Wouldn't reading before bed be just as interactive as surfing the internet or playing a game?
Science proves something every person on the planet already knows.
I used to sleep badly, until I started to follow one rule: no screens after 9pm, whether it's for the TV, internet or games. Now I always get enough sleep, unless I break this rule for some reason. Funnily enough it doesn't seem to matter if I read in bed, which makes me think that the backlighting on screens may have played some role in stuffing up my circadian rhythms.
WTF do you think the technology in an alarm clock is design for! Ummmm DUHHHHHH to interrupt my FSCKing sleep!
Two anecdotal points. First, i don't really seem to have a circadian rhythm. I can get up early and stay up late one day and get up late and go to bed early on another. Given the opportunity i can take a nap in the middle of the day and then stay up all night and return to a more or less normal sleep schedule the next day. And i've never been bothered by jet lag.
Second, i never have what most people would qualify as trouble falling asleep. However if i don't drop off instantly after going to bed i've got three usual options to speed up the process. Lie still and focus on relaxing muscles one by one, read a book, or play Sudoku on my cell phone. Sudoku usually works just as well as forcibly relaxing myself, sometimes even better, despite the fact that i'm staring into a lit screen and being "interactive." Reading a book _usually_ works just as well, but it does occasionally backfire if it happens to be an particularly interesting book, especially if i'm getting towards the end.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Why are you bathing with interactive devices?
Were you using the JoyStick in your bath?
I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it. -- Groucho Marx
this is very simple ... they are trying to go to bed and still thinking about the text msgs or about what they just seen online.. Even if they would watch tv and see something that touched them they would have problem falling a sleep because they would be thinking about it... its not like it has anything to do with electricity !
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