A study by Japanese researchers has revealed connections between electronic media use and sleep loss, reports the journal Sleep and Biological Rhythms (volume 5, Issue 3; July 2007).
The study comprised two separate surveys of light, medium, and heavy Internet users. After discounting sleep-deprived participants who ascribed sleep loss to factors other than electronic media, the researchers, led by Nakamori Suganuma, MD, PhD, of the Osaka University Health Care Center, concluded that there were significant differences in the three groups, all of which reported a sleep duration before a workday as less than six and a half hours.
The researchers found that only 29% of light Internet users perceived they had insufficient sleep compared to 53.5% of heavy users. The findings also uncovered a wide contrast between perceived lack of sleep and the actual duration of sleep before a workday as well as contrast between amount of sleep reported before a workday and amount of sleep reported before a non-workday. Furthermore, younger respondents more frequently ascribed using media before sleep as a factor in their perceived insufficient sleep than older respondents.
Because half the respondents ascribed insufficient sleep to using electronic media, attention should be given to media use before sleep as a cause of perceived insufficient sleep, Suganuma concluded.
Click here to read the abstract.
