Why Can’t Adolescents Get Enough Sleep?
Spoiler alert: social media is largely to blame.
Sleep is a vital part of everyday life, especially for young people. Teens are going through tons of growth, changes, and lifecycle transitions, which means rest is essential. Unfortunately, young people, more than others, fall into the trap of excessive social media use and insufficient amounts of sleep.
A team of researchers looked into why and how social media affects adolescents’ sleep. They studied 5,242 Canadian students aged 11-20 using a survey from a longstanding study, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2013 Youth Risk Behavior Study.
Sleep Recommendations for Young People
This study used frameworks for sleep that were established by the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines:
9-11 hours/night for 11-13 year olds
8-10 hours/night for 14-17 year olds
7-9 hours/night for 18+
Students were asked how many hours of sleep they get on an average school night, with options ranging from 4-10+ hours, and the results were compared against the recommendations above.
Only 36.4% of students met or exceeded the sleep recommendations for their age group, meaning most teens aren’t getting enough sleep. Students aged 18-20 and male students were more likely to not get enough sleep.
Why Aren’t Adolescents Sleeping Enough?
There are many factors that affect adolescents’ sleep, including artificial light, caffeine use, bedtime rules in the home, and an increase in information and communication technology—including social media.
Does Social Media Use Affect Adolescents’ Sleep?
In order to understand the connections between sleep and social media use, students were asked to self-report on their daily social media use. The options ranged from not using the internet at all to 7+ hours per day.
This portion of the survey found that 73.4% of students use social media for at least one hour per day, and 16.1% reported using social media for at least five hours a day. No wonder it’s eating into sleep time! The researchers concluded that a lack of sleep and social media use are certainly connected.
Other Factors Influencing Adolescents’ Sleep
In addition to the connections between social media use and a lack of sleep, the researchers also looked into how various other factors influence sleep.
Age: Based on students’ responses, 39.1% of 11-13 year olds, 33.6% of 14-17 year olds, and 50.5% of 18-20 year olds were not getting enough sleep.
Race: Divided into five categories (White, Black, South Asian, East or South-East Asian, or other), 40.4% of students who identified as white were meeting the sleep recommendations, compared to only 32.1% of students who identified as non-white or other.
Gender: More than half (51.4%) of the respondents were male, but the female respondents were far more likely to use social media and far more frequently. They were twice as likely as their male counterparts to spend at least five hours on social media per day.
Socioeconomic Status: Education, financial status, and occupation of the students’ families were factored in. Students of higher socioeconomic status were 9.4% more likely than students of lower socioeconomic status to get the recommended amount of sleep.
Immigration Status: Only a small percentage of the respondents (17.8%) were immigrants as determined by the number of years they had lived in Canada. They were 5.5% less likely to get the recommended amount of sleep.
Substance Use: Based on how frequently the students had used cannabis, cigarettes, and alcohol in the last year, those who reported substance use were 5.7% less likely to get enough sleep on weekdays.
Physical Activity: Students noted how many days they’d exercised for the recommended amount of time (60+ minutes/day) out of the last 7 days. Respondents who had met the physical activity recommendations were 9.8% more likely to meet the sleep recommendations.
Mental Health: Students chose poor, fair, good, very good, and excellent.
Of the students who reported excellent mental health, 48.2% reported meeting the sleep guidelines.
Of the students who reported fair or poor mental health, only 21.2% reported meeting sleep guidelines.
All of these covariates painted an in-depth picture of the state of social media use and mental health in people ages 11-20. The researchers concluded that at least one hour of social media use per day was connected to a shorter sleep duration.
All this said, it may be best to make sure adolescents and young adults aren’t using their phones at night. In fact, getting into the habit of keeping your phone outside your room or on Do Not Disturb is best (for all people, not just adolescents!). Try reading or journaling before bed instead to avoid getting sucked into the wormhole that is social media.
Happy sleeping!
Study Objective & Methods
Use of social media is associated with short sleep duration in a dose-response manner in students aged 11 to 20 years
Hugues Sampasa-Kanyinga, MD; Hayley A. Hamilton, PhD; Jean-Philippe Chaput, PhD.
Published in Acta Paediactrica.
The researchers’ goal was to gain a more in-depth understanding of how social media is affecting adolescents’ sleep. They worked in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2013 Youth Risk Behavior Study, a survey which has been circulated to Canadian students yearly since 1975. Through this study, they were able to reach 5,242 Canadian students aged 11-20. They asked for specifics about social media use, sleep patterns, race, gender, socioeconomic status, immigration status, mental health, physical activity, and age in order to get an in-depth analysis. They found indisputably that social media is making it difficult for young people to get enough sleep.
Social Media and Well-Being Training
This research (and all our social media and well-being articles) have laid the foundation for our 3-course program designed for anyone wanting to approach social media and communications in a way that protects well-being and puts people first. Learn more here.
