Sleepless Due to Social Media?
Investigating Problematic Sleep Due to Social Media and Social Media Sleep Hygiene
It's 10:00 pm, and you have work the next day. It's time for bed, but instead of curling up under your sheets and closing your eyes, you find yourself reaching for your phone.
Before you know it, it's already 3 am.
Does this sound familiar to you? If so, you might be suffering from a sleep disorder—perhaps brought about by your late-night social media use.
But you’re not alone. In recent years, there has been a significant increase in "nocturnal social media use," as discovered in a 2020 study by Anushree Tandon, Puneet Kaur, Amandeep Dhir, and Matti Mäntymäki. These behaviors have become so commonplace that checking social media before bed is almost considered natural.
However, the relationship between social media use and problematic sleep patterns is not as linear. The reality is much more complicated.
What researchers came to discover upon their study was that several factors played a part in sleep patterns among young adults, including excessive social media use, the fear of missing out or FOMO, poor mental health, and inadequate sleep hygiene.
But, how? Did our use of social media or feelings of FOMO influence our sleeping habits? And if so, were they to blame for our insomnia?
Can Staying Connected Keep You Up?
While a quick Instagram check or text message to a friend before bed can seem harmless, the consequences can be severe. Late at night, these mindless scrolls can disrupt our sleep-wake cycle and keep us awake much later than we intended.
The explanation for this is simple: Smartphones emit blue light, which suppresses melatonin, the hormone involved in regulating our sleep cycle. This, in turn, tricks our brains into thinking that it's daytime when it's technically nighttime, causing us to feel more awake than usual.
And as you might expect, the more awake we feel and the more time we spend on social media, the less sleep we get.
These sleep habits constitute what we call "sleep hygiene," or the practice of maintaining positive sleep patterns through self-regulation. The use of social media before bedtime is one example of this; although it’s common, this late-night behavior reflects poor sleep hygiene and can negatively impact sleep quality and duration.
However, not all young adults experience this. As the researchers came to discover, this finding only affected young adults in educational settings. The results could be explained by the fact that students often have a harder time maintaining self-control and moderation than their working counterparts.
As for those who were employed, social media was simply a means of coping with daily pressures rather than a distraction from sleep. Social media use did not affect sleep quality in this sample of young adults, but other factors such as sleep hygiene and self-regulation did. Having certain work obligations, these individuals displayed higher levels of self-control, thus preventing them from falling into a social media spiral.
What Is The Link Between Social Media, Sleep, and FOMO?
For most people, fear is a sign of uncertainty, a way of thinking that’s unconcerned with truths and histories. It’s a feeling brought on by anxiety of the hypothetical.
And in the world of social media, this fear is one that’s especially amplified. In an age when we are constantly exposed to the lives of others, it’s not surprising that we may stumble across something we aren't a part of or something we may be missing out on.
Cue the fear.
Nowadays, it’s all too easy to compare our lives with others and even easier to get caught in an unbreakable cycle of comparison and FOMO. You can’t help but think… My life isn't as exciting as others. But still, you remain online.
Perhaps you keep your smartphone nearby to alleviate FOMO anxiety. Or maybe you set your social media status to "active" to fool yourself into thinking you're always connected to a large network of friends. But don't be concerned—this is not an unusual situation. In fact, it's something we're programmed to do.
As we begin to feel more disconnected from those around us, we turn to social media for an answer. In an effort to connect with others, we reduce our sleep and increase our use of social media.
And researchers say this isn't just limited to the hours before bedtime. According to the study’s findings, many users continue this practice into the middle of the night, answering texts and phone calls between the stages of wakefulness and sleep.
This kind of disruptive act can lead to excessive nocturnal social media usage, which further affects sleep quality. But despite what people might think, FOMO is not the culprit here. In reality, the problem stems from our lack of control and overuse of social media.
So, How Can I Break the Insomnia Cycle?
Well, first and foremost: you must understand that you aren’t stuck.
As the data observes, individuals who practice good sleep hygiene are less likely to become addicted to social media, thereby getting better sleep. In this case, practicing healthy sleep habits and addressing feelings of loneliness, isolation, and FOMO may help you manage your social media use before it becomes a problem.
As a working professional, you can also benefit from using social media in moderation. Scrolling through Instagram may seem like the solution to reducing these anxious feelings, but it is not. Behavioral factors like these can increase anxiety, harm your psychological well-being, and, you guessed it, impair your sleep quality.
The same can be said about mental health issues and excessive social media use. In all cases, moderation is key.
To mitigate some of these effects, you must actively change your habits. You could, for example, decide to limit your screen time at night or conduct self-evaluations throughout the day to become more aware of your excessive use of social media. Whatever the case may be, it is critical to break the habits that are interfering with your sleep.
However, should you find that the above remedies don't work or that your sleep is still not improving, it may be helpful to seek professional assistance and engage in practices such as cognitive-behavioral therapy.
But like we said, you’re not stuck.
Study Objective & Methods
Sleepless Due To Social Media? Investigating Problematic Sleep Due To Social Media and Social Media Sleep Hygiene
Anushree Tandon, PhD; Puneet Kaur, MSc, DSc; Amandeep Dhir, PhD, MSc; Matti Mäntymäki, DSc
Tandon et al. fill a gap in the existing literature on sleep disturbances by investigating how FOMO, social media use, psychological well-being, and sleep hygiene are associated with problematic sleep in a study of young adults, both in educational and professional settings.
Using the data collected in the study, researchers concluded that social media usage has a direct effect on sleep habits, while factors such as FOMO and sleep hygiene shared an indirect association.
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