Smartphone use at night during sleep isn’t as bad as you think, research suggests

Everyone has heard the advice not to use your smartphone before bed – and many of us have ignored it. In fact, you may be reading this article while you are in bed. If so, it could be a lot the next time someone walks you through your Sleep Hygiene.

That’s because a study published this summer in the journal Health suggests that screen use in adults may not be as detrimental to sleep as previously believed. While further research is needed to confirm these unexpected results, the study highlights the inevitability of the consequences of our smartphone addictions.

Use of sleep screen

Researchers investigated early suicide screen use (using screens in bed or within an hour of going to bed) and the sleep health of over 1,000 adults in Canada. More than 80% reported being on screens while sleeping in the past month, and nearly a quarter of a screen sleeper reported every night. The researchers divided the participants into three types of sleep screen users: occasional (less than once a week), moderate (one to four times a week), and 5 or more times a week).

Notably, “after accounting for gender, age, and income, both regular and regular screen users reported better sleep,” the group wrote in the best study ever. Occasional sleep time users had significantly higher sleep duration and sleep satisfaction, and regular sleep time users had significantly higher sleep duration and daytime sleep time. Moderate users reported worse sleep quality.

It’s worth noting that the participants’ self-reported sleep health claims may not be accurate as the researchers tracked their breast-feeding. However, these results seem to challenge previous studies. For example, in a 2021 paper, researchers wrote that “screen exposure, especially near bedtime, directly leads to poor sleep quality.” A 2023 paper on medical students in Egypt reported a healthily high incidence of poor sleep quality among smartphone users during sleep. A 2022 study explains that smartphone screens emit blue light, which can affect sleep quality.

However, “the previous coverage of blue light has never reached the age, time and intensity of exposure to blue when considering the concentration in this study and the director of toronto metropolitan university, said the statement of the university. “There may be a reason to be cautious about the blue light that is blue for the youth as a light source. Since we’re at a higher level, we don’t have the same age-related eye effects that make the eyes glow.”

Check it out for yourself

The sleep quality of adults can also be influenced by the way a person uses a smartphone or similar device before bed, not just. For example, some apps can help restless users. On the other hand, others can develop feelings that prevent sleep, according to the statement.

“The association between bedtime screen use and sleep quality appears to be complex as bedtime screen frequency, health-rated sleep dimensions, and biological sex can all influence this relationship. “More research is needed to understand healthy sleep and screen sleep and the role of this relationship in adults.”

Adults can test the effects of bedtime screen use on their sleep directly by looking at their current sleep for one week and then looking at the second week when they don’t use it one hour before bed, according to Carney.

“If you sleep and feel better during the previous sleep time of your device, make it a new habit. If you can notice the difference, like the people in this study,” Carney concluded, although this may seem like a simple conclusion to some.