Children Looking at Screens in Dark at Risk of Poor Sleep

Date: 30 January 2019 - 20:59

News ID: ۶۲۶۸۵

LONDON (Dispatches) -- Preteens who use a mobile phone or watch TV in the dark an hour before bed are at risk of not getting enough sleep compared to those who use these devices in a lit room or do not use them at all before bedtime.
The study by researchers from the University of Lincoln, Imperial College London, Birkbeck, University of London and the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute in Basel, Switzerland is the first to analyse the pre-sleep use of media devices with screens alongside the impact of room lighting conditions on sleep in pre-teens.
It found that night-time use of phones, tablets and laptops is consistently associated with poor sleep quality, insufficient sleep, and poor perceived quality of life. Insufficient sleep has also been shown to be associated with impaired immune responses, depression, anxiety and obesity in children and adolescents.
Data was collected from 6,616 adolescents aged between 11 and 12 and more than 70 per cent reported using at least one screen based device within one hour of their bedtime.
The results showed that those who used a phone or watched television in a room with a light on were 31 per cent more likely to get less sleep than those who didn't use a screen. The likelihood increased to 147 per cent if the same activity took place in the dark.