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Dakota Schroeder

Professor Leonard

English 1201

20 Feb 2020

Social Media and Sleep and the Dangerous Effects

Social media is stronger now than it may have ever been. Companies like

Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram are being used by so many teens and young

adults now more than ever. However sometimes teens don’t know when to put the phone

down. Many teens and young adults are using their phones before bed at a larger rate than

ever. Between using it to text and use social media or to stream Netflix, phones are

keeping children up. The use of cell phones in bed are causing issues in teens and young

adults sleep, which can lead to other more serious issues such as bad performance in

school, fatigue, and even anxiety and depression.

Screen time is up more than ever for teens and young adults. The Iphone has a

feature where it tells you how long you’ve been on your phone each day and gives you a

weekly average. It also shows what you spend your time on whether it be YouTube,

social media, or other platforms. In our Sociology class we went around in our reading

groups and each looked at our screen time and what we spend the most time on. Most of

our group was around the 5-6 hour mark per day and spent most of our time on social
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media such as Instagram and Twitter. However, one member of our group averaged over

12 hours a day on her phone. I was very surprised by this because I thought 5-6 hours

was a lot for one day. When we looked to see what she spends most of her time on it was

YouTube. She said that she uses YouTube in bed before going to sleep and often falls

asleep with it on still. When I asked her how her sleep quality often is she said not the

best and that she often feels tired and fatigued in class. This sparked my interest in this

topic.

While researching how social media can affect our sleep, I came across a

staggering statistic. During a study done by ScienceDirect, 57% of people who use their

phone experienced worse or disturbed sleep than if they didn't (Levenson, 2016). The

people in the experiment reported waking up still feeling tired and not feeling refreshed.

However when they did not use their phones in bed, 82% felt as if they slept better and

woke up feeling more refreshed and less tired during the day. I tried this experiment

myself and used an app to record more sleep quality. An app called Sleep Cycle records

your quality of sleep based on noise, movement, snoring, etc. I have used this app for

years just out of curiosity. When I did this I scrolled through social media for about an

hour as I occasionally do, then went to bed. The next morning I woke up and checked the

results, my sleep quality was 53% out of 100 and was described as poor and that I never

entered a deep sleep. However the night I only used my phone to record my sleep and not

use social media, my sleep quality was 89%. That is a pretty big difference. I was in a

deep sleep longer and woke up feeling that I had more energy than usual. This backed the

claim from ScienceDirect that social media directly affects sleep quality.
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Dr Bernadka Dubicka, who is the chairwoman at the Royal College of

Psychiatrists, said depressed young people may "increasingly turn to social media late

into the night" (BBC, 2019). She said doctors should have conversations with their teen

patients about social media use and if it keeps them up at night. Dr Max Davie, has a job

at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said “I recommend that young

people stay off all screens for at least an hour before bed so their brains have time to wind

down.” Not getting enough sleep at night can impact how you act not only in

relationships with your friends and family but with your mental health.

Not only has the social media rate gone up, but so have sleep problems. 7 hours is

the recommended amount that an adult should be getting. In the 1940s, adults averaged

about 7.5 hours of sleep (BBC, 2019). Now we are getting on average 6.5 hours of sleep

which is about an hour less. Social media makes the brain more awake and harder to

focus on sleep. Social media will make you think about everyone else's lives and how the

world is changing. Even if it's something you enjoy watching, it can cause stress. It's

harder for us to fall asleep when our body is stressed (BBC, 2019). The hormone that

regulates sleep is melatonin. At night, the cortisol production drops, allowing melatonin

to take over.

There is a new product called Blue Light Glasses that helps prevent headaches

when looking at a screen for too long. The blue light from phones and screens interferes

with circadian rhythms and is why doctors have said to not look at your phone an hour

before bed. Social media has a big impact on mental health, especially for women. Social

media is a very addictive thing and most people don’t understand how much it can impact
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your life (BBC, 2019). Teens need a lot of sleep and with the invention of social media, it

has been lacking.

Social media allows people to make new friends and stay up to date on their

current relationships. 93% of people on Facebook use it to stay connected with family

members, 91% say they use it to connect with close friends, and 87% use it to stay

connected to old friends. 72% of all teens connect with their friends through social media.

81% of teens said that social media makes them feel connected to the people in their

lives, and 68% said having it helps their friends support them in tough times. 57% of

teens have made news friends that they didn't even know before. It also helps employers

find employees and jobs. 96% of recruiters said they use social media for the recruiting

process, for example: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. 48% of job seekers said they give

their thanks to social media for helping them find their current job. Being a part of a

social media site can increase a person’s quality of life and maybe even reduce the risk of

health problems (BBC, 2019). Having a group of people help support you through life

can help a lot. Friends and family on social media can have a huge effect by encouraging

them to stay up to date on exercising, dieting, and even help stop smoking.

Social media can be very helpful, but there are a lot of negative effects to social

media. Students who are on social media a lot of the time usually tend to have lower

grades. It isn't a proven fact, but a lot of statistics back it up in that regard. 31% of teens

say that being on social media while trying to finish their homework decreases the quality

of their work. Students who use social media on a daily basis had an average GPA of

3.06 while students without it had an average GPA of 3.82. Students who used social
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media while studying for tests scored 20% lower on them (BBC, 2019). Social media can

not only lead to a lot of stress but offline relationship problems too. 31% of teens who use

social media have got in arguments with a friend because of something that happened

online. A lot of people like to start rumors through social media because they are behind

the screen and do not really care what people think. A 2016 study said that the overuse of

social media as a teen can cripple the adult stage in life due to lack of communication

skills.

One of the reasons teens stay up so late is due to the amount of homework they get

along with their social life. Scientists have said that a person's “body clock” shifts

forward in the teen stage. For example, instead of feeling tired in the evening and

wanting to go to bed, teenagers tend to be more alert and have a hard time falling asleep.

In the morning, when adults are awake and ready to start the day, teenagers still have

high melatonin levels and feel sluggish as a result (BBC, 2019). That's a reason why

many doctors and school administrators want later high school start times. When schools

start later, that's when teens improve. For example, a high school in Minnesota named

Seven Hills changed their start times from 7:25 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. and tested the outcomes

for their students. As a result, the students got five or more extra hours of sleep per week

then they usually would, and attendance rates went up as well. In the same study, but for

middle schoolers, the ones who went to a school that started at 8:30 a.m. said they slept

an hour more than they usually would on school nights. The ones who started earlier at

7:25 a.m. said they were late to school more often and had lower grades. Even with data
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and statistics supporting later school starts, many schools and parents are still hesitant on

moving the start time later.

A sleep deprived person tends to not have the same energy for social interaction as

someone with the right amount of sleep. You can usually tell if someone is lacking sleep

due to their body language and droopy eyes. Even though sleep is one of the most

important things in life, people take it for granite a lot. Society often sees sleeping as a

sign for the weak. People say why sleep when you could be doing something? If you

want to be a hard worker, sleep is something you have to sacrifice. But the opposite is

also true. Sleep improves attention, health, and can make a person more efficient in times

of work. People always talk about dieting and working out, but the foundation of all of

that is sleep.

Some tips to help get more sleep at night include getting up around the same time

each day, even on weekends. By doing this, your body sets its own “clock” so it can stay

on track and get the most sleep it can. Always exercise during the day. Exercising at night

can tend to keep you up and be more alert. Also avoid mind straining activities like

paying bills in the few hours before you go to sleep. If you choose to pay them that late it

will keep your mind awake and harder to fall asleep (BBC, 2019). Avoid drinking alcohol

within two hours of bed because it can keep you up at night. “Before bed, keep a to-do

journal,” he said. Write down all the things you want to get done that day. Then write

down what you want to do tomorrow. Also mark down things you want to finish later in
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the week. By doing this it will clear your mind of worry and make your days much more

productive.

Tips are always a great way to stay motivated and learn new things. Go to bed and

get up around the same time every day. Engage in relaxing activities prior to bed, such as

yoga. Exercise regularly but not late in the evening right before bed. Avoid eating

immediately before bed. Eliminate daytime naps, taking naps during the day keeps you

up at night. Minimize external disruptions like light and noise, try and keep your room as

dark and quiet as possible. You can always hear people talk about what to do and not to

do when sleeping. Make sure to try all of these tips and see if it helps.

As I did more research on how disturbed sleep can affect the body, I discovered

that it can be far more dangerous than the world thinks today. There have been reports of

people falling asleep on the way to school or work from staying up all night on social

media. Obviously falling asleep behind the wheel is an extreme case, however we can not

overlook it. Also, this can cause extreme fatigue in school. According to Heather Woods

from an experiment on 467 people, students often felt staying up late made them tired and

less motivated to study and get school work done. This affects a students grade and

overall well being, poor grades can cause anxiety, depression and even make some drop

out or not pursue education after highschool. Anxiety and depression are nothing to play

with. Over 40 million people suffer from anxiety and 300 million have reported suffering

from depression (ADAA, 2018). Obviously social media is not the main cause of these,

but lack of sleep can definitely relate to these disorders. To sum up, we need to be careful
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when we make choices to use social media in bed, because even though it may not seem

dangerous at the time, it can cause a chain of events that can be very destructive.

To help prevent this we should teach kids how to be more social with each other at

a younger age and not be obsessed with their phones. Parents should have younger

children put their phones away before bed to help get them a good night's rest and be

prepared for school. For younger teens and adults, we should limit ourselves by setting

limits on our phones for the amount of time we use apps or putting the phone on do not

disturb before going to bed. This can help us be well rested to handle the tasks of

everyday life without feeling fatigued and drowsy. Also this will help students have more

time to study and be better rested for class and tests.

In conclusion, Social media has a big impact on the quality of sleep we get and can

be very dangerous if we let it consume us. Too many people are consumed by their online

social media profiles and how other people think about them. This causes people to be

engaged with others at night and thus keeping them awake when their brains are focused

on something else (BBC, 2019). Also, the bright screen can keep your brain alert and put

a strain on your eyes and cause your brain to feel tired (Levenson, 2016). Social media

has consumed our generation and we must try to socialize in person instead of over social

media. Social media can be a benefit to people who communicate with family and friends

who live far away, but it is important that we put the phones away to get the sleep that

our body desperately needs to function well.

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Works Cited

Blaszczak-Boxe, Agata. “Social Media Use in Teens Linked to Poor Sleep, Anxiety.”

Live Science, 2015, https://www.livescience.com/52148-social-media-teen-

sleep-anxiety.html.

“Anxiety and Depression.” Anxiety and Depression Association of America, 2018,

https://adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-statistics.

“Heavy Social Media Use Linked to Poor Sleep.” BBC News, 2019,

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-50140111.

Levenson, Jessica C. “The Association between Social Media Use and Sleep

Disturbance among Young Adults .” ScienceDirect, 2016,

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743516000025.
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Woods, Heather. “#Sleepyteens: Social Media Use in Adolescence Is Associated with

Poor Sleep Quality, Anxiety, Depression and Low Self-Esteem.” ScienceDirect,

2016, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140197116300343.