{"id":4081,"date":"2018-11-06T22:17:16","date_gmt":"2018-11-06T22:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/childrens-screen-time-has-little-effect-on-sleep-says-study\/"},"modified":"2018-11-06T22:17:16","modified_gmt":"2018-11-06T22:17:16","slug":"childrens-screen-time-has-little-effect-on-sleep-says-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/childrens-screen-time-has-little-effect-on-sleep-says-study\/","title":{"rendered":"Children&#8217;s screen time has little effect on sleep, says study"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div property=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width lead\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"js-image-replace\" alt=\"Girl in bed with device\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/801E\/production\/_104189723_childsleeping.gif\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\"\/><span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    Correlations between screen time and lack of sleep are &#8220;extremely modest&#8221;, says the report<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">The amount of time children spend on devices has little effect on how long they sleep, a study from Oxford University suggests.<\/p>\n<p>It runs counter to previous research that suggested excessive screen time was linked to children failing to get sufficient rest.<\/p>\n<p>The survey concluded that the relationship between sleep and screen use in children was &#8220;extremely modest&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p>But one UK GP said the findings did not tally with his clinical experience.<\/p>\n<p>The study, conducted by the Oxford Internet Institute, relied on data from a 2016 US study into children&#8217;s health, in which parents from across the country completed surveys about their households. <\/p>\n<p>The children&#8217;s &#8220;digital screen time&#8221; was based on answers to two questions about the weekday habits of children aged between six months and 17 years:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">how much time they spent on computers, mobile phones, handheld video games and other electronic devices<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">how much time they spent in front of a TV watching programmes and other content as well as playing video games<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The findings indicate that the tech-abstaining teenagers slept only slightly longer than their counterparts who had spent much of their day in front of a screen.<\/p>\n<p>For example, teenagers who had not been in front of a screen for any part of the day got a total of eight hours and 51 minutes of sleep. <\/p>\n<p>Those who had spent eight hours of their day glued to a screen got eight hours and 21 minutes of slumber.<\/p>\n<p>The sample size for the survey was more than 50,000 youngsters from every state in the US.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">&#8216;Mini case of jet lag&#8217;<\/h2>\n<p>The study, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpeds.com\/article\/S0022-3476(18)31384-2\/fulltext\" class=\"story-body__link-external\">published in the Journal of Pediatrics<\/a>, said every hour of screen time was linked to between three to eight fewer minutes of sleep a night. <\/p>\n<p>Screens are now a fixture of modern childhood and both professionals and parents are increasingly expressing concerns that the amount of time children devote to devices affects their physical and mental health.<\/p>\n<p>When it comes to sleep, there are concerns that children take devices to bed and continue to use them when they should be sleeping.<\/p>\n<p>Others have expressed worries about the role the blue light emitted from such devices plays on sleep habits and a related hormone.<\/p>\n<p>The US National Sleep Foundation has told parents that it is important to stop children using electronic devices before bedtime &#8220;because the blue light emitted from these screens can delay the release of sleep-inducing melatonin&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is an especially big problem for teens whose circadian rhythms are already shifting naturally, causing them to feel awake later at night. The end result: sleep-deprived or poorly rested kids who have essentially given themselves a mini case of jet lag,&#8221;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sleepfoundation.org\/sleep-topics\/how-blue-light-affects-kids-sleep\" class=\"story-body__link-external\"> it writes on its website.<\/a><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">&#8216;Imperfect data&#8217;<\/h2>\n<p>But the study author thinks other factors should be considered.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Focusing on bedtime routines and regular patterns of sleep, such as consistent wake-up times, are much more effective strategies for helping young people sleep than thinking screens themselves play a significant role,&#8221; said study author Prof Andrew Przbylski.<\/p>\n<p>Prof Przbylski told the BBC that many of the studies suggesting links between screen time and lack of sleep had very small sample sizes and need &#8220;much larger studies&#8221; to find conclusive evidence of a problem.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Because the effects of screens are so modest, it is possible that many studies with smaller sample sizes could be false positives &#8211; results that support an effect that in reality does not exist,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>He acknowledged that the data used in the study was &#8220;imperfect&#8221; because it relied on reports from parents. A further study into the time that children turn off their devices before bedtime will be published shortly.<\/p>\n<p>Many of the large technology firms, including Apple, Google and Facebook, have introduced dashboards allowing people to keep a check on the amount of time they spend on screens.<\/p>\n<p>Some leading technology executives have banned their own children from using devices. <\/p>\n<p>The late Apple chief Steve Jobs&#8217;s young children were notably not allowed iPads.<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates banned phones until his children were teenagers.<\/p>\n<p>And Tim Cook, Apple&#8217;s current leader, has said he would not let his nephew join social networks.<\/p>\n<p>One UK GP, Rangan Chatterjee, said the Oxford University study was &#8220;welcome&#8221; but that he did not plan to change his advice to parents, which was to turn off devices an hour before bedtime.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The more research on this area, the better because screens are here to stay,&#8221; he told the BBC.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But the findings don&#8217;t replicate what I see in clinical practice which is that the use of screens right before bed has a significant impact on the quality of sleep.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/technology-46109023\">Source<\/a> by <a href=\"\">[author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Correlations between screen time and lack of sleep are &#8220;extremely modest&#8221;, says the report The amount of time children spend on devices has little effect on how long they sleep, a study from Oxford University suggests. It runs counter to previous research that suggested excessive screen time was linked &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4082,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}