Over half of teens are losing critical sleep to phone use after midnight
It’s an increasingly common refrain that Connecticut child and family therapist Kerri Anderson hears from worried parents of tweens and teens: They’re on their phones at nightparents tell him. We don’t want to fight about this, but this isn’t working.
Parents say children have difficulty waking up on time in the morning. His grades are bad. They are grumpy and grumpy.
Anderson has noted anecdotally that anxiety has increased during her 15 years as a therapist. Now, a new study from the University of California, San Francisco, shows the extent to which phone use at night during school can disrupt vital sleep for teenagers.
Researchers found that teens used smartphones for more than 50 minutes on average between 10pm and 6am on school nights, and more than half of teens used their phones between midnight and 4am. According to the research, it was revealed that the majority of this phone use was spent on social media applications such as YouTube, Instagram or TikTok. Others were looking at streaming apps or playing games like Roblox or Clash Royale.
The study, published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, tracked screen use in 657 adolescents, a group with an average age of 15. All are participants in the national Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, which includes a racially and economically diverse sample of children and is the largest long-term study of brain development and child health in the United States.
Jason Nagata, lead author and associate professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, said the researchers obtained data from an app installed on teenagers’ phones that passively tracked their screen usage patterns. That’s important because “most previous studies relied on self-reporting of screen use,” he said, but it’s not as comprehensive or accurate.
Speaking to The Post, Nagata said he was aware that many people (teens and adults) use their phones right before bed, but he was surprised that more than half of teens use their phones between midnight and 4 a.m. “This is a really critical window of time when kids need to be asleep, especially on school nights.”
Nagata said the simple solution would be to remove screens from the bedroom. However, the team’s research also revealed that this did not happen.
Middle-of-the-night use could indicate that phone notifications are waking kids up, struggling with insomnia, or reflexively reaching for their phones when they wake up naturally at night, he said.
Nagata adds that its full impact on sleep likely extends beyond minutes spent staring at a bright screen. He says social media use, in particular, is “very emotionally stimulating.” “There’s too much stimulation, and that can make it difficult for teens, especially, to calm down even after they hang up the phone.”
The findings build on previous research showing that screen use before bed can reduce sleep quality and that even short periods of extra sleep can have a significant impact on teenagers.
“Sleep is crucial for adolescent brain development, learning, and mental health, and we already know that most teens don’t get the recommended amount of sleep,” says Nagata, according to sleep experts, which is 8 to 10 hours. Nagata adds that it’s particularly worrying to see scrolling replace sleep: “We know that social media is associated with a higher risk of developing depression, anxiety, attention problems, and can impact academic and cognitive performance.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that families create a media plan for the household that parents can follow. “Parents need to be role models for these rules,” Nagata said. (His previous research found that parents’ screen use was one of the strongest predictors of preadolescent screen use.)
The ideal solution? “We completely eliminate screens from the bedroom, especially while sleeping. Our research has shown that simple movement alone is associated with the best quality and longest sleep duration,” says Nagata.
But most teens don’t turn away from screens when they go to bed: Two-thirds of teens in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study reported previously sleeping with their phone or other electronic device in their bedroom. “This is the default situation for the majority of young people in the United States,” Nagata says.
It can be a difficult cycle to break. But even if the phone stays in the bedroom, there are steps that can help. “To close completely Nagata notes that it’s more effective than leaving it on with a silent or vibration-only setting; Even gentle vibrations or fluctuating lights can wake children up.
When working with families, Anderson says she emphasizes the importance of open dialogue between parents and teens. The goal might be a phone-free bedroom, but “the goal is hopefully to get there with participation,” he says.
Teens often need connection with peers or the autonomy of a mindless scrolling session after a long day of school, activities, homework, and other obligations; She says trying to listen to them about their own feelings and needs is an important part of reaching a realistic solution.
“You want it to feel like support, not necessarily punishment: ‘This is what it is, so how can we help you do this thing that we all know is good for you without feeling like we’re taking something away from you?’ he says. “We’re trying to teach these soon-to-be adults how to manage these things on their own, without just enforcing our own rules.”
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that nearly half of teens lose critical sleep due to phone use between midnight and 4 a.m. The research revealed that 52.1 percent, or more than half, of the 657 young people surveyed used their phones during this time period.
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