Technology has its benefits, but has a Negative Impact on Sleep
Technology is a significant and daily asset of people’s lives in today’s society. It is easily one of the world’s greatest advancements as people use it for gps, facetime, internet, recording, and more. However, oftentimes, children and adults tend to get on their phone to text or scroll through social media, use their laptop to finish a last minute assignment, watch an episode of their favorite show, or play their favorite video game before going to bed. Then, the next morning they notice they are very tired, and have low functioning ability, and further down the road, they are having trouble sleeping. So, what is not very known in society, but needs to be knows, is that this habit of using technology before bed is affecting people’s daily life making it hard for people to function at work, school, or within any task they need to accomplish because they are so tired, and find themselves waking up frequently during the night. Thus, technology presents negative outcomes as the use of technology and electronics before bed has a negative impact on people’s sleep, and can lead to sleep problems and disorders.
Aspects of most electronics and technology can disrupt a human’s circadian rhythm. The circadian rhythm is a human biological clock that helps regulate one’s sleep-cycle in correlation to night and day (Suni, 2022). In other words, for humans, when it is night, the body’s natural response is supposed to feel tired, whereas in the morning, the body is supposed to feel more awake and alert . Consequently, a disruption in the circadian rhythm can lead to many issues in regards to sleep. According to Eric Suni (2022), when the circadian rhythm is off, it can lead to sleep disorders such as insomnia (having trouble sleeping, or staying asleep), obstructive sleep apnea (breathing difficulties while sleeping), and hypersomnia (excessive daytime sleepiness). But, how does technology disrupt the circadian rhythm? The circadian clock is “sensitive” light, which lets the body know it’s time to be awake according to Suni (2022). This gives reasoning to why humans are awake during the day. Likewise, the use of technology that emits a sort of light before bedtime increases alertness at night (Chang, 2015, p. 1232). This confuses the circadian rhythm as the body is associated with light during the daytime, when instead one should be asleep. Anne-Marie Chang and her team (2015) conducted research to show that technology affects sleep by drawing blood work from participants who were placed under conditions including using a light emitting technology in a dim room light for 5 evenings straight and using a paper version in dim light for 5 evenings straight as well. According to this research, those who used light emitting technology had lower levels of melatonin, a hormone that helps induce sleep, and found themselves sleepier the morning after (Chang, 2015, p. 1233). Further, the research concludes that “using a light-emitting device in the hours before bedtime is likely to increase the risk of delayed sleep-phase disorder and sleep onset insomnia, especially among individuals living in society who self-select their bedtimes and wake times” (Chang, 2015, p. 1233). In summary of this study, participants who used an electronic device to read showed disruptions in their circadian rhythms. Based on this information, it is seen that technology clearly has a negative impact on sleep as it disrupts the natural biological mechanisms of the human body.
Additionally, research done in 2010 on a group of church-going people for a period of 4 years has shown there to be a negative correlation between watching TV at night and sleep. Data shows that under many control variables, such as drinking caffeine, diet, smoking, those who watch more than 2 hours of television experienced “trouble falling asleep, waking in the middle of the night, and waking early and unable to go back to sleep” as compared to those who watched less hours of television (Serrano, 2014, p.281). With there being an option of watching church online nowadays , this can add on to the amount of hours a church going spends watching television, adding on to struggles related to sleep.Based on those statistics it is clear that excessive tv watching negatively affects one’s sleep. Further, more research states that as “television and computer screens become increasingly larger and bright light exposure from screens is considered to influence melatonin production” (Cain, Gradisar, 2010, p. 740). While these advancements and ability to improve technology such as television and computers are remarkable, it is increasing people’s use of it, and overtime emitting more light, both leading to people developing sleep problems.
Moreover, the use of technology and its impact on sleep does not just affect adults, but also children and their quality of life, and unfortunately these negative impacts can carry into their adulthood as well. Caitlyn Fuller and her team (2017) conducted a survey analyzing children aging from 8 to 17 years old, sleep quality, and BMI levels in correlation to how much time they spend using technology. The results of this showed that “children who used their phone at bedtime compared to those who did not were more likely to be tired in the morning and were less likely to eat breakfast in the morning” and that the frequent use of technology creates a “sedentary” lifestyle leading to obesity in children, which was associated with children having trouble falling asleep and causing them to be more inattentive (Fuller, 2017). Children are the future, technology has shown a negative impact on them as those children enjoying the company of technology at night, are not getting proper sleep, and not adopting healthy lifestyles in the morning because they are too tired Further, The National Sleep Foundation discovered that adolescents who had several media devices in their bedrooms more than others tended to have less sleep at nights than others, thus “these adolescents were also more likely to have fallen asleep at school or while doing homework at least a few times per week, felt too tired or sleepy during the day, and more likely to think that they have a sleep problem”(Cain, Gradisar, 2010, p. 736). Clearly, technology can have a direct effect on sleep, and also an indirect impact as it causes children to be more lazy leading to obesity which can also lead to sleep problems, such as sleep apnea. Additionally, it decreases their functioning, possibly decreasing grades in school.
Likewise, statistics show that the majority of children have at least one electronic device in their bedroom oftentimes causing them to wake up to tend to their devices (Cain, Gradisar, 2010). This contributes to children delaying their bedtime schedules, ultimately leading to the possible development of a sleep disorder. Research has shown that that children having video games or a computer in their bedroom is “associated with delayed bedtime, less time in bed, shorter total sleep time, and increased prevalence of disorders of bedtime resistance, delayed sleep onset, sleep anxiety, parasomnias, and sleep-disordered breathing(Cain, Gradisar, 2010, p. 736). Additionally, other research has concluded that “adolescents’ bad sleep quality was consistently associated with the mobile phone use and number of devices in the bedroom, while in preadolescents, with Internet use and turning-off time” (Bruni, 2015). These studies further prove that technology has a negative impact on society, even kids, by disrupting sleep which is healthing for other reasons such as decreasing stress and risk of depression.
As noted before, with children being too tired during the day, this can affect their school performances, daily functioning, and moods as technology is setting them up with the risk of developing many sleep issues. Adolescents have attested “personal issues with self-regulation of online content is related to negative sleep outcomes” and have expressed the “fear of missing out” causing them to get on social media or watch inappropriate videos; additionally, some of attested that seeing social media posts about weight has affected their quality of sleep and the amount of sleep they get (Charmaraman, 2021). The temptation of technology and the many features it comes with such as technology is capturing children, causing them to lose sleep. With the invention of social media as part of the advancements of technology, and the lack of regulation for children and adolescents using technology, adolescents feel compelled to use their devices late at night to stay up to date, and the quality of the content they are taking in is also negatively impacting their sleep.
Technology can create a worldwide issue affecting the proper function of society; however, this habit of late night use of technology contributing to poor sleep hygiene can be helped. Some insightful solutions include, powering of technology early, and placing phones or any devices far away at nights can help limit the urge to get on the device. Additionally, lowering the brightness of a screen at night can help decrease alertness and decrease the risk of disrupting the circadian rhythm. Further, one should maintain a strict schedule, and hope to be in bed at an early time. This includes scheduling out work for the day that is typically done on a device, so that assignments are not being done late at night on a laptop or any technology that emits light. However, most children cannot do this themselves. Parents can help their children by decreasing the amount of devices in a child’s bedroom. It is not enough to just tell a child to go to bed when they have many devices tempting them at night, especially if they are not tired. For example, in a “household where a parent encourages his/ her teenager to go to bed at 10 pm, the delayed adolescent may go to [their] bedroom and occupy time by using [their] mobile telephone, computer or television until feeling sleepy enough to go to bed several hours later”(Cain, Gradisar, 2010, p. 740). Thus, parents could use time out features on their child’s device, or simply take away any devices before bed. Further, parents should encourage their kids to expend their energy doing outdoor activities, or playing sports inorder to decrease technological use. Likewise, adults should do the same for themselves, strictly regulate their schedules, and stay active.
Furthermore, technology has its pros, but research has shown the negatives of it as well. As humans, we’re meant to be getting good sleep at night, and running our earrings during the day—not the other way around. But, with several light emitting devices frequently being used around the world, with the social pressure to stay up to date with social media, and with the distraction of the entertainment technology comes with, it is negatively impacting sleep by lowing melatonin levels, disrupting the sleep cycle, and causing people to have a poor quality of sleep; ultimately leading to sleep disorders such as insomnia, parasomnias, hypersomnia, or sleep apnea. By taking actions as little as limiting the use of technology before bed can help decrease poor quality sleep that many suffer from, eliminate the risk of developing a sleep disorder, and promote healthy lifestyles.
References
Bruni, O., Sette, S., Fontanesi, L., Baiocco, R., Laghi, F., & Baumgartner, E. (2015). Technology
Use and Sleep Quality in Preadolescence and Adolescence. Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 11(12), 1433–1441. https://doi.org/10.5664/jcsm.5282
Cain, N., & Gradisar, M. (2010). Electronic media use and sleep in school-aged children and
adolescents: A review. Sleep medicine, 11(8), 735–742. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2010.02.006
Chang, A.-M., Aeschbach, D., Duffy, J. F., & Czeisler, C. A. (2015). Evening use of
light-emitting eReaders negatively affect sleep, circadian timing, and next-morning alertness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112(4), 1232–1237. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26454261
Charmaraman, L., Richer, A. M., Ben-Joseph, E. P., & Klerman, E. B. (2021). Quantity, Content,
and Context Matter: Associations Among Social Technology Use and Sleep Habits in Early Adolescents. The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine, 69(1), 162–165. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2020.09.035
Fuller, C., Lehman, E., Hicks, S., & Novick, M. B. (2017). Bedtime Use of Technology and
Associated Sleep Problems in Children. Global pediatric health, 4, 2333794X17736972. https://doi.org/10.1177/2333794X17736972
Serrano, S., Lee, J. W., Dehom, S., & Tonstad, S. (2014). Association of TV Watching With
Sleep Problems in a Church-Going Population. Family and Community Health, 37(4), 279–287. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48515390
Suni, E. (2022, April 8). What Is Circadian Rhythm? Sleep Foundation.
