Doomscrolling Versus Sleep

An unsurprising negative effect.

The ongoing blight of modern times – the inescapable presence of digital screens.

What happens if you use them in the few minutes leading up until bedtime? Consistent with prior literature in adolescents, similarly undesirable effects seen in adults:

As you can see above, the self-reported prevalence of poor sleep quality increases in line with self-reported screen use at bedtime.

In addition to complaints of poor sleep quality, study participants reporting increased screen use generally reported fewer minutes of sleep, as well – approximately 7.5 minutes per day, on average, for those in the “daily use” cohort.

Now, this is all self-reported survey data, and an association is not causation; confounding factors could be contributing to both increased screen use and poorer sleep, rather than the entire effect size being attributable to the screen use itself. Then, television electronic screens were specifically excluded from being a contributing factor, despite likely similarly disruptive levels of blue light or prolonged wakefulness.

… but it would still probably do some good to switch to non-digital pre-bedtime activities!