
Children's screen time has little effect on sleep, says study - hanoz
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-46109023
======
calewis
I have spent the last year building sleep tech and I have read 100's of papers
on the subject, been to conferences and spent lots of time with academics and
experts on the subject of sleep. Screen time matters massively. It _really
matters_ for children and every single piece of evidence, bar this poorly
written study (two questions), say so. It's a real issue for adults too, and
blue light issue aside, the disturbance of your wind down routine is a massive
health issue that needs to be adressed. It affects not only how you fall
asleep (the marker for which people judge sleep quality) but also staying
asleep and the quality of it (a far more important measure).

(Also if anyone is building sleep apps/tech I'm looking for work)

~~~
Roritharr
If you've stumbled in your reading upon any hints on what to do with a two
year old that barely sleeps more than 6 hours a day (including naptime) i'd
kill for it.

We're having a neurologist appointment coming up because of it, but I can't
shake the feeling we're just the worst parents. :/

We've taken away all screens from him a month ago, but he won't stop waking up
at night, trying to breastfeed as much as possible and not falling asleep
before 1 AM.

~~~
nvusuvu
My sister-in-law only needed 4 hours of sleep a day growing up. Very
frustrating for my in-laws. She is in her late 40's now. All this to say, its
probably not something you are doing to your son. He might just be that way!
:)

~~~
calewis
This is not strictly accurate. There is some daily mail science about “super
humans” who need less than 7-8 hours. And while some people survive like this,
your body needs sleep for 7-8 no exceptions. Deep sleep (as important as light
sleep) only occurs during long uninterrupted phases. During those phases your
body does some amazing things. Amongst other things the production of things
like cancer fighting cells and repairing all the physical and mental streses
of the day. While not fully understood exactly what, we know the why and lots
of good studies prove the correlation between regular quality sleep and better
mental and physical well being.

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nikk1
>"This is an especially big problem for teens whose circadian rhythms are
already shifting naturally, causing them to feel awake later at night. The end
result: sleep-deprived or poorly rested kids who have essentially given
themselves a mini case of jet lag"

It doesn't seem like a huge problem that teens are getting ~30 minutes less
sleep per nights because of technology. Staring at screens is now a major part
of our lives and that probably won't change any time soon. I do think we need
to consider what time class starts for teenagers who need a solid 8-9 hours of
sleep per night. When I was in High School, a 7 am start time required me to
be awake at 5 am, which probably contributed to how miserable I felt as a
teen.

~~~
josefresco
>When I was in High School, a 7 am start time required me to be awake at 5 am,
which probably contributed to how miserable I felt as a teen.

In my region they've shifted school start times later to accommodate teens who
have late after-school activities. The problem with this logic is that the
younger the child, the more sleep they need. The shift for our local teenagers
resulted in even earlier start time for elementary and middle school aged
kids. Bus schedules also shifted which required me to wake my young kids even
earlier (5:30 AM). Thankfully my work is flexible enough that I can drive
them, which gives them an extra 30-45 min of time each morning - other parents
not so lucky.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
What's your source on "younger children need more sleep"?

Our teen definitely needs much more than his younger sibling. But it seems to
be more individual based on my very low n observations, the eldest needed more
sleep when he was the age his younger sibling is.

I'd expect there to be a sex-based characteristic to sleep needs to?

~~~
josefresco
I didn't cite my sources because I thought it was common knowledge (my bad). I
found this after 1 search query:
[http://www.aappublications.org/news/2016/06/13/Sleep061316](http://www.aappublications.org/news/2016/06/13/Sleep061316)

Two more in case you need some more:

[https://www.webmd.com/parenting/guide/sleep-
children#1](https://www.webmd.com/parenting/guide/sleep-children#1)

[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-sleep-guidelines-for-
babies...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-sleep-guidelines-for-babies-kids-
and-teens/)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
The reason I wanted your source was to see the detail - like ranges, breadth
of studies, etc..

Many people assume a lot of things that when investigated turn out to be
false.

Often assertions don't match their backing: for example you said " The problem
with this logic is that the younger the child, the more sleep they need."

However that's not what your first study says. It gives broad ranges, so it
concedes that younger children can need less sleep than older children, it's
not tied in a simple way to age.

You perhaps meant "on average", which is quite reasonable, and having the
source you based you statement on can lead one to assume you were being brief
rather than errant.

FWIW those sources look like you quickly googled it; and so weren't really
relying on any particular sources.

TL;DR your source supports my observation and contradicts your claim as
written.

~~~
behringer
For parents wondering what the right amount is, the right amount is simply how
many hours your children _wants_ to sleep. People on a schedule just don't
oversleep. The research only really matters if you have medical concerns about
your child, for example, you can't get them on any schedule, they're sleepy
when they seem to be getting enough sleep, or there's some other issue.

Make your schedule malleable for your kids and within a few days you'll pretty
much know exactly how much sleep they need.

~~~
josefresco
> how many hours your children wants to sleep

For my kids the trouble is "when" they want this sleep. My oldest goes to bed
"early" and rises early. My youngest could stay up until 2-3 AM and sleep
until noon (as she did this summer).

~~~
calewis
This may depend on their chronotype. When we were cave people some of us
evolved to stay up later and guard the camp from predators, some of us got up
early to hunt. You need to try and support that where possible, but not to
overindulge it. If they are staying up until 2:00am to play computer games it
may just be because their brain is more sensitive to light and it's actually
that that's keeping them awake.

~~~
Fire-Dragon-DoL
Ah damn that explains why i'm so awake from midnight to 4 am... My chronotype
is definitely not a morning one,

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4ndr3vv
Note that the study is self reported figure on sleep duration; quality of
sleep is not measured.

There have been many links between increased blue light and reduced
REM/restful sleep

~~~
ryanmercer
>There have been many links between increased blue light and reduced
REM/restful sleep

The only decent study I know of about blue light and sleep, was done before
the LEDs in phones/tablets/kindles even existed. Which means they were using
more traditional light sources that were likely putting out an order of
magnitude more luminosity.

Everything that suggests tablets/phones/kindles interferes with sleep are woo-
woo blogs trying to affiliate link sell you orange safety glasses and similar
nonsense.

If these devices ARE affecting sleep, it's likely the level of mental
stimulation they are providing and the fact that when most people get into
bed, they don't shut their mind off and instead start thinking about how Sally
post pictures of her 13th fancy meal in her 13th country this month and how
John's abs pop way more than theirs and it's just not fair because they count
their macros and train and train and just can't get abs like that or they're
mad that SniperLulz127 fragged them 4 times this evening in Overwatch Fortress
7 Call of Defeated Zombies.

~~~
gowld
Comnputer light (which is white, including more blue than other light sources
in a home) does interfere with sleep more than normal indoor bedroom lighting
(which is usually red), but it does not cause blindness during the daytime.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25535358](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25535358)

This shouldn't be suprising or controversial -- compare the color fo your
idoor light to the color of the outdoor light at different times of day.

------
justaguyhere
I went to a camp for a month and had no access to computers and phones. I can
vouch that I slept much better during that month than any other time. And
every time I tested by not having electronics around my pillow I sleep better.
I am not a kid and this is just one data point, but it would take a lot to
convince me that screen time doesn't affect sleep. In my experience at least,
it has an effect and not a good one.

~~~
funkaster
it could very well that what you did to replace that screen time was what
affected your sleep and not the actual lack of screen time: more excercise,
more reading, etc. I think screen time on its own is not the issue, it's what
other things you do/do not. Everything in excess is (very likely) going to
produce a negative effect.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
That seems like a "pedestrians don't die 'crossing the road without looking',
they die getting hit by cars" type distinction. The removal of 'crossing the
road without looking' is still the solution.

~~~
funkaster
Sure. but the argument I (poorly) made was that screen time on its own might
not be the only thing affecting sleep time/quality. Think about it this way:
if you keep the same amount of screen time, but also do the other things (time
playing outside, reading books/comics, playing with in person with friends,
etc) then you would prob get the same quality sleep. The thing is that people
tend to use screen time as a replacement of those activities. That's IMHO the
biggest problem.

As a parent of a 2.5yo toddler, I'm not restricting screen time to my son at
all, because I want him to get used to them: screens and computers will
inevitably be in his life. But I also make sure to play board games with him,
read books and let him have actual play time outside in the park with other
kids.

------
makewavesnotwar
This is based off a study as reported by parents of teens "caregiver
estimates", not the teens themselves or something potentially even more
accurate like Fitbit data.

Just because a parent counts their kid as asleep because they're in their room
with the lights off doesn't mean they actually are. From personal observation,
I randomly see phone screens floating around in the dark while I'm getting up
to go to the restroom in the middle of the night all the time.

Parents are also less likely to report in ways that make their kids out to be
addicts, or themselves out to be bad parents. And there may be a correlation
between excessive digital-lives for youths and neglectful parenting. Not to
mention that "teens" are generally one of the hardest demographics to study
because it's pretty much impossible to get a good control group as it's
essentially their first time exercising freedom from control in general.

And yeah, 8.5 hours average for teens seems like prima facie BS. Kids wouldn't
be "jet-lagged" if they slept that much. I think I was sleeping between 5-7
hours a night depending on how late I was up with friends or on the net when I
was a teen (early thirties now).

I'm not saying one way or another as to whether or not screen time for youth
is a problem or should be a topic of concern, but this article seems like
nonsense.

~~~
makewavesnotwar
Also, reading the study further: despite the fact that the author of the
article may have been paraphrasing a statement in the abstract conclusion, the
study seems to mostly undermine that premise as it shows an inverse
relationship between screen time and sleep.

[https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(18)31384-2/fulltext...](https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476\(18\)31384-2/fulltext#s0045)

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davebryand
What's next? "Children's diet has little effect on their health, says study"?

How do they publish things like this with a straight face? This is not tied to
the reality that I'm experiencing--you? We don't need peer-reviewed studies to
tell us things that are easy to study empirically.

Please run an experiment on yourself and make up your mind.

~~~
dragonwriter
> This is not tied to the reality that I'm experiencing--you?

Certainly in terms of short-term variations in quantity of screen time having
little effect, and much smaller than other factors, on sleep time it matches
my current experience with my son. Not that I give that experience much weight
in general predictions.

> We don't need peer-reviewed studies to tell us things that are easy to study
> empirically.

I think you've confused “empirically” with “anecdotally”. N=1 testing has, in
the best case, very large error bars in predicting broad population
generalities. (And , in most cases, makes it very hard to isolate confounding
factors.)

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allcentury
There's a lot of room for error in this study - I wouldn't draw any
conclusions based on this.

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makz
Everything has little effect on sleep for children XD

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Simulacra
SEE MOM! I TOLD YOU!

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pasta
But it does has an effect on nearsightedness.

Since the seventies nearsightedness has become an epedemic because we are
reading more and more.

So it does not only apply to screen time but more general: reading time.

~~~
Retric
Nearsighted apparently relates to lack of UV exposure. It’s time spend inside
often in school that’s the issue.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5233810/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5233810/)

~~~
dudul
That's also what I thought, but for some reason I got downvoted for it :)

