Addiction to smartphones will result in poor sleep, according to a new study.
The study, published Tuesday in Frontiers in Psychiatry, looked at smartphone use among 1,043 students between the ages of 18 and 30 at King’s College London. Researchers asked the students to complete two questionnaires on their sleep quality and smartphone usage, in-person and online. Using a 10-question validated scale that was developed to assess smartphone addiction in children, nearly 40% of the university students qualified as “addicted” to smartphones, the study found.
“Our estimated prevalence is consistent with other reported studies in young adult populations globally, which are in the range of 30–45%,” lead author and King’s College medical student Sei Yon Sohn and her coauthors wrote in the study.
“Later time of use was also significantly associated with smartphone addiction, with use after 1 a.m. conferring a 3-fold increased risk,” the authors wrote.
Students who reported high use of cellphones also reported poor sleep quality, the study found. That falls in line with prior studies that have found the overuse of smartphones at night to be associated with trouble falling asleep, reduced sleep duration, and daytime tiredness. That’s likely because the use of smartphones close to bedtime has been shown to delay circadian rhythm, the body’s normal sleep-and-wake clock.
In fact, the No. 1 rule is “no computers, cell phones, and PDAs in bed and at least one hour prior to bedtime,” Dr. Vsevolod Polotsky, who directs sleep basic research in the division of pulmonary and critical care medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
(Source: International Agencies)
