Prolonged use of electronics disrupts teenagers sleep.

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According to a new study , adolescents who use electronic devices more often suffer from insomnia. They need more time to fall asleep and they sleep on average less. The study was conducted on almost ten thousand teenagers from Norway in 2012.



Teenagers who used electronic devices (including computers, phones, mp3-players, tablets, TVs and game consoles) for more than five hours a day, had 3.5 more chances to sleep less than five hours, and 50% more chances to spend more than an hour on falling asleep. At the same time, there was an inverse relationship between sleep time and gadget use time: the more they were used, the less they slept. Also a pronounced effect on the duration of sleep has the use of gadgets in the last hour before a person goes to the side.





The dependence of the duration of sleep on the duration of the use of gadgets

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The author of the study, Dr. Heising, said that often teenagers from boredom or because they cannot fall asleep use gadgets in bed, thus getting into a vicious circle. If they can not sleep, they use gadgets, and from this they sleep even worse.



It is known that the human rhythms are strongly influenced by light. Bright light screens and electric lighting knock down the internal "clock" and interfere with the normal bedtime. But researchers found it difficult to give an unambiguous explanation for the effect found. In addition to light, other factors may be involved in the process — for example, emotional arousal from using gadgets, or something else.