I remember once being told that looking at a screen before bed time is harmful to ones sleep schedule. I heard that watching TV before falling asleep actually made one more awake. I was always confused by this because in High School I would always fall asleep on the couch to the sound of the television. So, when brainstorming ideas for my next blog post I remembered hearing about this theory. I decided to Google ” do bright screen affect sleep,” and I was shocked at what I found.
According to an article in Scientific American, bright screens are actually delaying sleep. Mariana Figueiro of RPI discovered that “two hours of iPad use at maximum brightened was enough to suppress people’s normal nighttime release of melatonin. Melatonin is a hormone that is released by the pineal gland in the brain. It controls ones sleep cycle. At nighttime, melatonin levels are high (or at least they should be), and during the day, the levels should be low. The exposure to the bright light right before bedtime forced the body to think that it was in fact not nighttime, causing the melatonin levels to lower. Figueiro also says that the dose of light is crucial. “Brightness and exposure time, as well as the wavelength, determine whether it affects melatonin.”
An article form the Huffington Post draws more radical conclusions. The author claims that “reading on a screen before bed might be killing you.” Brigham and Women’s Hospital conducted a study with 12 participants. For 2 weeks, the participants read LE-e-Books on an iPad for 4 hours right before bed time each night for 5 nights in a row. Then after that, they were instructed to do the same thing with printed books. The conductors of the study randomized the reading so some were reading the iPad then the printed version and vice versa. The participants who read the iPad before falling asleep were found having lower melatonin levels and spent less time in REM sleep. While it is clear that the brightness affected the melatonin level in this study, I am hesitant to completely agree. The study was only done with 12 participants. If the study conductors really wanted to be more certain in the
ir findings they should conduct the study again with a larger sample size.
I think that another interesting question would be whether or not age can help or hinder this issue. Young children have essentially grown up with electronics and screens. Since screens have been around their whole lives, does the exposure make them immune to the harmful effects?
Anyway, I now know that if I want to get a good nights sleep I should put my phone away well before I fall asleep. I should even turn the TV off before I call it a night.
I thought that this was very interesting and I also agree with you on how the study was only based off of 12 people so it’s not 100 percent reliable information. Maybe if there were multiple studies on this or more people were involved it could be more reliable. As I was reading this I was wondering if there were some things you could do before bed to help hold back the urge to be on your phone or use technology before bed so, I found this
article and they seem like pretty helpful tips!
Just as the other comments state, this is a very valuable post, especially for our generation. We constantly sleep next our tablets and cell phones. I’m always on mine before I go to bed. I have actually thought about not using my phone right before I go to sleep just to see if my sleep gets better. I like how you look at the study. You noticed it was done with a small sample and doesn’t really give much detail on who the people they were working with. Good eye on that one. There are many variables with sleep and twelve is defiantly a low a number for any scientific study.
I can really connect to this topic because I’m the type of person that falls asleep usually watching something on my laptop. I find it helps me sleep better because sounds lull me to sleep. This blog post made me think of a question I had a while ago, does sleeping with a device on or near you increase a cancer risk? It isn’t fully connected to your article but it’s on the same basis of how our bodies react to being around noise and lights and electronics while we sleep. I’ve seen two different research papers on this topic one saying that yes it can increase your risk for cancer and the other saying the radiation given off by a laptop or electronic is no more than the exposure from the sun. This is a case where I myself am lost. Do I sleep with my laptop on like I have been or give it up potentially aiding my health and sleep patterns? And I’m just not quite sure at the moment.
Link the interesting paper mentioned: http://peperperspective.com/2013/04/27/keep-mobile-phones-tablets-or-laptops-away-from-your-body-wireless-devices-may-cause-harm/
This is a really relatable post due to the fact that I always lay down looking at my phone right before bed. I felt like I knew for a fact that it was the cause of my sleep troubles. Your post validated that for me, it actually is keeping me up! Maybe late night homework on the computer is a cause of sleep deprivation in students. After reading your post now I’m going to make efforts to unplug myself at least a half hour before sleeping. In fact, last night I played 3 straight Madden games before bed (I had nothing to do), and I was tossing and turning for at least a half hour before finally falling asleep. One recommendation I might have for you is to add a graph showing the melatonin levels of people who are on screens before bed to show a visual comparison with the other graph (if they even have one, they might not). Anyways, nice post and topic.