The “University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine” has carried out an interesting study to the connection of sleep disturbances of adults and social networks. The study was supported by the US-American “National Institute of Health”. The 1,788 participants from 19 to 32 years represent the first generation who grew up with social media. Result: The more frequent the access to the networks, the higher the grade of sleep disturbances.
Study leader Jessica C. Levenson, Ph. D., pointed to the fact that the study is a first prove that social media really might negatively influence sleep. The actual triggers have to be determined in future studies.
The possibilities of influence are manifold:
• Instead of sleeping, the participants spend time in social networks.
• Thanks to the high share of blue-light of the used computer screens, tablets or cell phones the sleeping hormone melatonin gets inhibited.
• A possible arousal due to the followed messages resp. the conducted discussions result in difficulties to fall asleep resp. to sleep through.
• The participants simply spend time in social Networks because they are not able to sleep.
• Or a combination of all these reasons.
On an average, the participants used social media 61 minutes per day and visited different social media 30 times per week. The evaluation revealed that almost 30 % of all participants show a high degree of sleep disturbances.
It seems that the frequency of the visits on social media is more increasing the possibility of sleep disturbances more than the total time spent on social media accounts. Those participants who checked their accounts throughout a week more frequently than other ones had a three time as high a risk of sleep disturbances. Whereas the possibility of those who spent most time on social media was only two times as high. According to Levenson an indication that the frequency of visits may cause more sleep disturbances than the total time spent. “If it so, countermeasures against obsessive checking of the own social accounts might be especially effective in fighting sleep disturbances”, so Levenson.
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