The Effects of Digital Devices on Sleep

BY Luxsika Olarnrak, Patwee Wasunantharat, Punika Suvimolpan

EDITED BY Jittanan Tirawatthanaprapha

The Effects of Digital Devices on Sleep

Digital devices, such as smartphones and laptops, play a vital role in our day-to-day lives, even during the late hours of the night. Many individuals have adopted the habit of scrolling through their electronic devices in bed, although not all realize that it can negatively affect their health. Due to the many effects of electronics, excessive use of these devices can be detrimental to sleep quality, patterns, and duration.

How Digital Devices Affect Sleep

Using digital devices before sleep or placing them near the sleeping area have various effects on the body, both physically and psychologically. Such impacts can lead to poor sleep quality, shorter sleep hours, difficulties in falling asleep, and inconsistent circadian rhythms.

Artificial light from digital devices emit blue wavelengths, which is more commonly known as blue light. While blue wavelengths improve attention and mood during the day, it is harmful to the body at night, lowering the levels of the hormone melatonin. Researchers have found that exposure to blue light at night suppresses the production of melatonin much more than other types of light. This suppression of melatonin can be damaging to sleep, as melatonin regulates the body’s circadian rhythm—an internal clock in the brain that controls cycles of sleepiness. As a result, blue light can affect an individual’s sleeping cycles, consequently reducing and disrupting the number of sleeping hours.

Using electronic devices before sleep also imposes a large risk to sleep quality and time, as it encourages brain activity. Activities such as texting, watching entertainment, and scrolling through social media stimulates the brain and keeps the body awake. Additionally, it can influence moods, triggering happiness, anxiety, or other emotions when seeing certain content. This engagement will further make it harder for one to fall asleep and delay their REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, which is important for brain development and mood. Studies have shown that restricting mobile phone usage before sleeping increases sleep duration and memory. It also reduces sleep latency and pre-sleep arousal, which allows individuals to calm down and enter deep sleep stages faster.

Even when digital devices are not in use, they can interfere with the body when it is in proximity. People often put their phones under their pillows or near their beds. However, notifications from mobile phones are another threat to sleep quality, causing sleep disturbances throughout the night. The sound of a ring tone, text message, call, or disruptive alarm clock can interfere with the body when it is falling asleep, sleeping, or waking up, which can reduce the overall quality of rest.

Other than the aforementioned physical effects, digital devices can have mental impact as well. Scrolling through your phone can induce unwanted stress and an addiction to technology usage. Nowadays, many people are victims of doomscrolling at night, the act of mindlessly scrolling for an extensive amount of time. Consuming media, especially news or social media posts, can prompt anxiety or the fear of missing out. A negative mood can subsequently lower the sleep quality. Furthermore, an addiction to doomscrolling often also delays sleep, resulting in less sleep overall. Studies have shown that social media exposure is strongly correlated with sleep problems.

Preventions

Humans must have good sleep hygiene to prevent the disadvantageous effects of technology usage. One of the best solutions is to build a technology-free environment in the sleeping area. Thus, there should be some adjustments to gradually improve your sleep routine and overall health.

Set an Allocated Area for Electronic Devices - Find a location outside the bedroom where electronics will be stored and charged at night. The area should be a suitable location for chargers—to assure that devices will have full battery in the morning.

Use a Screen Time Routine - About 1 hour before sleep, rather than checking messages or watching movies, do some practical activities to reset yourself from all-day-long stresses. Examples of common practical activities are stretching, reading in dim light, taking a bath, etc. It is important to be strict with the routine and close all devices before turning off the lights.

The Bed is Only for Relaxing - Try not to bring work or tough activities to do in bed, as it will easily encourage you to use more technology. Avoiding this will help your body to distinguish between being in bed and doing activities.

Low Disruption Alarm Clock - Using a basic alarm clock in replacement of a phone alarm might be a great decision for people who want to wake up on time. In most alarm clocks, there will be a low-light function which decreases the annoyance in your dark room.

Work, Social, and Relaxation Confines - People believe that they should have a phone near them during sleep time, in case of urgent messages. Without knowing it, this belief directly caused sleeping problems by interrupting your sleep time. If possible, inform friends and coworkers that you will not be constantly active during night time.

While using digital devices before sleeping can be convenient, it should be kept in mind that you are exposing yourself to multiple health risks. Electronics can impact hormones, brain activity, and moods, which further decreases sleep quality, duration, and patterns. To avoid these negative effects, it is advisable to maintain a healthy sleep hygiene by creating a technology-free sleeping environment and limiting screen time at night. The next time you are thinking of scrolling through your smartphone before going to sleep, consider the various effects that may follow and choose to practice healthy habits instead.

References:

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Harvard Health. “Blue Light Has a Dark Side.” Harvard Health, 7 July 2020, www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/blue-light-has-a-dark-side.

He, Jingwen, et al. “Effect of Restricting Bedtime Mobile Phone Use on Sleep, Arousal, Mood, and Working Memory: A Randomized Pilot Trial.” PLOS ONE, vol. 15, no. 2, Public Library of Science, Feb. 2020, p. e0228756. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228756.

Holloway, Cassandra. “Why You Should Ditch Your Phone Before Bed.” Cleveland Clinic, 5 Jan. 2023, health.clevelandclinic.org/put-the-phone-away-3-reasons-why-looking-at-it-before-bed-is-a-bad-habit.

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