Imagine you are lying in bed at night, falling asleep, and you get a notification on your cellphone. Do you notice? Do you feel a need to check it? Is your phone already within arm’s reach? Many college students report having problems sleeping and not getting enough sleep. Nighttime cellphone use has been pointed to as a potential factor.
A recent study of young adults (18-29 years old) looked at how nighttime cellphone use affected sleep quality.
The researchers surveyed 425 college students to measure the amount of daily texts and calls, their nighttime cellphone use, if they had any sleep problems, the amount of daytime sleepiness they had, and if they displayed any compulsive cellphone use.
Feeling a need to check your phone if you get a notification while trying to fall asleep, as well as how close you keep your phone at night were two of the ways used to measure compulsiveness. Out of all the students they surveyed, more than 85% of them kept their phone within arm’s reach of where they sleep. Some even kept it on their bed, or under their pillow.
Those who displayed more of this compulsive behavior, often thought about similarly to addiction, had more sleep problems, like disrupted sleep, and more daytime sleepiness, like getting drowsy in the middle of the day. The feelings of anxiety people get when they don’t check their phone are what may be causing people to get poorer sleep. Future studies will need to address the connection between cellphone use, anxiety, and sleep. For now though, to get better quality sleep, and feel more rested during the day, get in the habit of turning your phone off or silencing it and putting it somewhere out of reach when you are headed to bed.
Written by Matthew McCulley