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Increased Smartphone Screen-Time Is Associated With Lower Sleep Quality, Says Study (medicalxpress.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the time-for-bed dept.

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.

9 of 61 comments (clear)

  1. Get with the times by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Funny

    I don't need sleep, I have an app do it.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
    1. Re: Get with the times by lxs · · 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.)

    2. Re: Get with the times by Calydor · · Score: 2

      Actually, I think I'm gonna skip #5 and wait for someone else to get to #6.

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    3. Re: Get with the times by david_thornley · · Score: 2

      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 I remember it as being, so I have a calendar app on my phone to make up for some of that (missing meetings and appointments and such would be irresponsible). I'd be considerably worse off without certain laws that restrict pollution, and those are from politicians.

      Most of the stuff that breaks around here I can't fix. Things in general have become a lot less fixable. Fortunately, they break a lot less. Anyone else old enough to remember the tube testers in hardware stores? If your electronic device wasn't working, you'd pull the vacuum tubes (if you were smart and/or doing this the second time, making notes on which sockets they came from), take them down there, test them, and buy replacements for the ones that didn't work anymore. Carburetors? They were fairly simple. They don't exist on most modern cars.

      So, you seem to be saying I should use ancient technology and just accept medical conditions that were untreatable when I was a kid. I don't agree.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  2. Post hoc ergo propter hoc by niks42 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you RTFA, you'll find one HUGE get-out clause saying "These findings cannot support conclusions on causation. Effect-cause remains a possibility: poor sleep may lead to increased screen-time"

    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?

    1. Re:Post hoc ergo propter hoc by NoNeeeed · · Score: 2

      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 affect our circadian rhythm, so using screens, especially close up in the evening, can send things out of whack.

      I've been a life long insomniac, and one of the things that *seemed* to help was to use software like F.Lux on my laptops and similar apps on my phone. They adjust the colour temperature of your screen towards the red later on in the evening. Obviously that's an anecdote, but there does seem to be some pretty reliable basic science behind in.

      Personally, I found that the thing that helped the most was a strong routine. The moment I start slipping out of that for more than a couple of days I know I'm going to struggle to sleep. One of the things that will do that is aimless browsing.

      --
      Paul Leader
    2. Re:Post hoc ergo propter hoc by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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 /.

  3. Anecdotal by codeButcher · · Score: 3, 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.

    --
    Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
  4. F'ing correlation is not causation! by monkeyzoo · · Score: 2

    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?!?