Smartphone addiction ruins sleep: study - New York Daily News

Smartphone addiction and sleep disruption go hand in hand, according to a new study, and 40% of college students are afflicted.
Out of 1,043 students aged 18-30 surveyed at King’s College London, 406, or 38.9%, showed signs of smartphone addiction, researchers said in a study published Tuesday in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry.
Researchers had participants answer 10 questions and then gauged their responses based not just on time spent on devices daily but also on how late and close to bedtime they used them, among other factors.
“Later time of use was also significantly associated with smartphone addiction, with use after 1 a.m. conferring a threefold increased risk,” the authors wrote, according to CNN.
The results were consistent with those of other studies, the co-authors said.
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Of the 40% deemed addicted, more than two-thirds, or 68.7%, had sleep trouble, while 57.1% of those not addicted reported similar sleep disruptions, The Guardian said.
Students most likely to show signs of addiction were those who used their phones after midnight or for four hours a day and up, The Guardian said, citing the study. Younger users were also more likely to be addicted.
Other markers of addiction were being unable to control the amount of time they spent on their phone, feelings of distress when they could not access the device, or when their phone use caused them to neglect other parts of their life.
“Our study provides further support to the growing body of evidence that smartphone ‘addiction’ has a negative impact on sleep,” study co-author Dr. Ben Carter, a senior lecturer at the Institute of Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience at King’s, told The Guardian. “The association is still significant even after adjusting for daily screen time use.”
The excessive smartphone reliance coupled with the coronavirus pandemic has taken an especially harsh toll on sleep and thus mental health, experts said.
“The negative impact of smartphone use on sleep is very concerning from a mental health perspective,” Dr. Bernadka Dubicka, chair of the faculty of child and adolescent psychiatry at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, told The Guardian. “Many young people have struggled with their sleep and mental health during this pandemic and poor quality or insufficient sleep can be both a symptom and a cause of mental health problems.”
Copyright © 2022, New York Daily News
Copyright © 2022, New York Daily News

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