A new study out of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine is linking frequent social media use with irregular and unhealthy sleep patterns.
According to NBC, researchers analyzed the social media habits of young adults and found that the more time a person spent on social media during the day, the more likely they were to report sleep disturbances. Social media in this context constitutes websites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google Plus, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, and more.
“This is one of the first pieces of evidence that social media use really can impact your sleep,” said lead author Jessica C. Levenson, a postdoctoral researcher in Pitt’s Department of Psychiatry, in a news release. “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.”
The study involved a sample of 1,788 U.S. participants between the ages of 19 to 32. These participants were asked, via questionnaire, about their social media habits. On average, they reported an average of one hour of every day as being devoted to social media, with social media being viewed around 30 times in a week.
More than half of the study’s participants reported medium to high levels of sleep disturbance. The more frequently a participant reported checking their social media accounts, the more likely the participant was to report sleep disturbance.
The results of the study are intriguing, but Levenson isn’t ready to make any specific or conclusive claims based only on the current data.
“Future research should work to replicate our findings in other populations, as well as to understand better the reasons why social media use is related to disturbed sleep,” Levenson said in an interview with NBC.