Selina Ladina Combertaldi1, Alexander Ort2, Maren Cordi1, Andreas Fahr3, Björn Rasch4. 1. University of Fribourg, Department of Psychology, Fribourg, Switzerland. 2. University of Lucerne, Department of Health Sciences and Medicine, Lucerne, Switzerland. 3. University of Fribourg, Department of Communication and Media Research, Fribourg, Switzerland. 4. University of Fribourg, Department of Psychology, Fribourg, Switzerland. Electronic address: bjoern.rasch@unifr.ch.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Sleep is critical for our mental health and optimal cognitive functioning. Social media use is increasingly common and suspected to disturb sleep due to increasing bedtime arousal. However, most studies rely on self-reported sleep. METHODS: We tested the effects of 30 min social media use on arousal and subsequent sleep in the sleep laboratory in 32 healthy young volunteers. Effects of blue-light were excluded in this study. We compared it to 30 min progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) and neutral sleep in a within-subject design. RESULTS: Thirty minutes of social media use immediately before sleep did not significantly increase arousal and did neither disturb objective nor subjective sleep. After social media use, participants only spent less time in sleep stage N2. In contrast, PMR had the expected positive effects on pre-sleep arousal level indicated by reduced heart rate. In addition, PMR improved sleep efficiency, reduced sleep onset latency, and shortened the time to reach slow-wave sleep compared to a neutral night. Oscillatory power in the slow-wave activity and spindle bands remained unaffected. CONCLUSION: Social media use before sleep (controlling for effects of blue-light) had little effect on bedtime arousal and sleep quality than what was previously expected. The most notable effect appears to be the additional time spent engaging in social media use at bedtime, potentially keeping people from going to sleep. As wake up-time is mostly determined externally, due to school or working hours, limiting personal media use at bedtime-and especially in bed-is recommended to get sufficient hours of sleep.
OBJECTIVE: Sleep is critical for our mental health and optimal cognitive functioning. Social media use is increasingly common and suspected to disturb sleep due to increasing bedtime arousal. However, most studies rely on self-reported sleep. METHODS: We tested the effects of 30 min social media use on arousal and subsequent sleep in the sleep laboratory in 32 healthy young volunteers. Effects of blue-light were excluded in this study. We compared it to 30 min progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) and neutral sleep in a within-subject design. RESULTS: Thirty minutes of social media use immediately before sleep did not significantly increase arousal and did neither disturb objective nor subjective sleep. After social media use, participants only spent less time in sleep stage N2. In contrast, PMR had the expected positive effects on pre-sleep arousal level indicated by reduced heart rate. In addition, PMR improved sleep efficiency, reduced sleep onset latency, and shortened the time to reach slow-wave sleep compared to a neutral night. Oscillatory power in the slow-wave activity and spindle bands remained unaffected. CONCLUSION: Social media use before sleep (controlling for effects of blue-light) had little effect on bedtime arousal and sleep quality than what was previously expected. The most notable effect appears to be the additional time spent engaging in social media use at bedtime, potentially keeping people from going to sleep. As wake up-time is mostly determined externally, due to school or working hours, limiting personal media use at bedtime-and especially in bed-is recommended to get sufficient hours of sleep.