Bright screens disrupt sleep patterns in teens
A new study confirmed that taking gadgets to bed can mess with the sleep patterns of teens. This isn’t new to parents, but now they can said that it’s confirmed by experimentation instead of “because I said so.”
The study published in the Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism concludes than an even just one hour of light exposure suppressed the production of melatonin, a sleep-timing hormone. Teenagers aged 11 to 16 were more affected than older teens.
Experiments also confirmed that the brighter the light source is, the harder it is to sleep. For children and early teens, one hour of exposure to dim light suppressed melatonin by 9.2%, normal room light suppressed melatonin by 26%, and the equivalent of a supermarket light reduced the hormone by 36.9%.
Older teens were less affected. Dim light did not suppress melatonin levels, normal room light suppressed it by 12.5%, and bright light decreased melatonin levels by 23.9%
“Small amounts of light at night, such as light from screens, can be enough to affect sleep patterns,” said study senior author Mary Carskadon, professor of psychiatry and human behavior in the Alpert Medical School of Brown University and director of chronobiology and sleep research at the E.P. Bradley Hospital in East Providence, R.I. “Students who have tablets or TVs or computers — even an ‘old-school’ flashlight under the covers to read — are pushing their circadian clocks to a later timing. This makes it harder to go to sleep and wake up at times early the next morning for school.”
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