Physical Wellness

It's Official: Social Media Disturbs Sleep

By Peter R | Update Date: Jan 29, 2016 12:08 PM EST

If you are an online sociophile and have trouble falling sleep, blame social media.

A new study links sleep deprivation and excessive social media use among people aged 19 to 32 years. While not showing a cause and effect relationship, analysis of sleep habits of the participants showed those who excessively used social media were twice likely to have sleep problems compared to those who reported spending less time with it, reports NY Daily News.

"This is one of the first pieces of evidence that social media use really can impact your sleep," lead author Jessica C. Levenson, said. "And it uniquely examines the association between social media use and sleep among young adults who are, arguably, the first generation to grow up with social media."

For the study, nearly 1,800 adults were surveyed in 2014. They were asked about their use of 11 popular social media sites - Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google Plus, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, Vine and LinkedIn. The participants reported spending an hour on average per day on social media.

The study also showed that participants who spent most amount of time checking social media were more likely to report sleep disturbances.

According to Healthy Day, some of the theories to explain the link include obsessive social media use cutting into sleep time, disturbed emotional state of mind that may make sleeping difficult and disruption of the night-day cycle to due bright lights emitted by devices.

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